7. Question No. 7—HealthHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of HealthQuestion No. 7—Health7. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: Is he satisfied the extra costs incurred by DHBs are having a positive effect on the volume of health services provided; if so what measures is he using to gauge the effect?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): I'm satisfied that this Government's record investment in health—SPEAKER: I'm going to get the member to speak up; I think we're having a bit of a volume problem with our system. Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: OK. I am satisfied that this Government's record investment in health is making a real difference to our public health service including to both patients and the staff that deliver their care. As health Minister I'm more concerned with outcomes rather than simply the volume of services. That's why we've reduced the cost of going to the doctor for around 600000 New Zealanders so that they can get treatment early and prevent small problems becoming more serious. However as the member asks about the volume of services we are seeing increases indeed. For example so far this financial year district health boards (DHBs) have completed 45456 MRI scans which is 5124 more than the same period last year. Over the same period we've also delivered 8000 more first specialist assessments and the number of people waiting for ophthalmology services has reduced from 10200 people in May 2017 to just over 4000 in December. Of course there is more to be done but progress is being made. Lastly in terms of measures the member knows full well there are dozens of performance measures built into our health system that record the delivery of services and the Ministry of Health uses the data to assist DHBs to improve their services. More health services are being delivered to more New Zealanders. Hon Michael Woodhouse: Well is he aware that the Ministry of Health's own statistics page has not been updated with that data since August 2016?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I'm not sure exactly which page that member's referring to but he may need to refresh his web browser. Certainly the previous National Government's health targets are being regularly updated and we're not printing them in the major newspapers and spending tens of thousands of dollars to promote a narrow range of political targets but you can see on there the targets being followed through. Of course there are a wide range of measures. Indeed in my letter to DHBs in December I highlighted some of the ones I was concerned about.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Is he aware that the now defunct health target data indicates reductions in volume and timeliness in four of the five targets since he removed them and the data on the sixth target which is elective surgery has not even been released?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: The electives target was retired previously. The member knows that. As to the others certainly in the first quarter of the 2017-18 year—since then in the comparative quarter the most recent quarter we're actually delivering on one more of the targets even though they're not ours than the previous Government was.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Is the failure to release the elective surgery throughput data due to significant reductions in throughput as a consequence of industrial action?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Of course I don't have those numbers right in front of me but what I can say is that we're seeing more services delivered to more New Zealanders and that is what we want to see. I've related to the member a large list of examples of more services being delivered and that member knows it.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Well isn't it true that that list is simply what the Minister chooses to share and he has not yet told the New Zealand public what's important to him in terms of health targets—when will he do that?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: As I've said we are focused on delivering outcomes for patients. That is my concern as health Minister. The previous Government's narrow targets are not something that I am going to commit us to because I actually believe it's more important to have better health outcomes for New Zealanders than to have Avastin injections and skin lesion removals done in more expensive settings just because it pumps up the statistics. That's what the previous Government did.