6. Question No. 6—HealthDr SHANE RETI (National) to the Minister of HealthQuestion No. 6—Health6. Dr SHANE RETI (National) to the Minister of Health: Does she stand by all her statements and agree with those made by Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand?Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister of Health): I stand by my statements in particular that my key priorities as Minister of Health this year are winter preparedness workforce and wait-lists. I also agree with Health New Zealand chair Rob Campbell when he said referring to me on winter planning she has made it very clear that she expects us to be doing much much better and we've upped our attention to it in accordance with that".Dr Shane Reti: Does she stand by her answer to written question No. 28840 stating that clinical health services are not in crisis?Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: As I've said we are focused on making sure that our workforce is well supported and that our services perform well during winter. What I believe our workforce and our public expect us to do is to be prepared and that's what we've announced today: a booster vaccine that'll make sure that people are kept out of hospital the continued anti-virals that will make sure that people are kept out of the hospital and that we continue to support our staff through improving their pay and the conditions in which they work. These are the sorts of things we do to avoid having those sorts of acute demand problems that we saw last winter.Dr Shane Reti: Is the health system in crisis or not?Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: I have on multiple occasions recognised the huge strain that our healthcare workers have been under—including in many conversations with them up and down the country—and what I have said to them and what I know that they expect us to do is that we will take the practical actions that will keep people well keep people out of hospitals and make sure that we support them to manage acute demand.Dr Shane Reti: How will the staff improvements at Middlemore Hospital emergency department (ED) that she stated last week ensure that Middlemore ED is ready for winter when on the same day she said this the chair of Health New Zealand stated that the workforce shortages plaguing Middlemore's ED would not be addressed in time for the winter flu season and will continue to impact services?Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: Mr Campbell and I are in agreement that there needs to be concerted action to improve the staffing levels across emergency departments and in other parts of the health system. But what we do want to be clear to our workers about is that there is not going to be a simple fix no single silver bullet that will mean that the pressure is totally gone away by this winter. We are totally committed to making sure we are taking action on multiple fronts to back our staff in terms of vaccinations in terms of anti-virals and making sure that the management of patients in the community and the hospital supports them to deliver the excellent care that they do.Dr Shane Reti: What policies and actions from the previous Minister of Health will she not be following and why?Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: I have great respect for my colleague Andrew Little and the tremendous amount of work he's done particularly to build a primary mental healthcare system in this country that now covers half the country to reform our health system and his commitment to healthcare equity in establishing a Māori health authority.Dr Shane Reti: Who are the people called "boundary spanners" in the Health New Zealand document titled "Unify to Simplify" and how will she tell the 80-year-old man in South Auckland who is on the waiting list for skin grafts that she is sending a boundary spanner?Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: That's a very specific question and if the member wants me to reply to a detailed question in any one of the tens of thousands of pages of documentation produced by Te Whatu Ora he is welcome to put that in writing."