O'Connor Greg; Utikere TangiHealthCHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Members we now have the Minister of Health. The Minister is available from 3.57 until 4.57. TANGI UTIKERE (Chairperson of the Health Committee): Tēnā koe Mr Chair and thank you. I rise as the chair of the Health Committee to speak to the Estimates for Vote Health. Mr Chair can I just briefly acknowledge your elevation to the deputy speakership. It's my first opportunity to do so. I also wish to thank members of the Health Committee for their diligence in reviewing the vote along with Ministers Andrew Little and Ayesha Verrall who took the opportunity to appear in front of the committee. The position of the Health Committee is to recommend that the appropriations be accepted. When we delve into things a little bit further we see that in 2022-23 the total appropriations sought for health totalled just over $24 billion. The vote has been significantly restructured in comparison to previous years and that is due to the shift to the new health system from 1 July of this year. Separate appropriations for each district health board as was the previous approach no longer continues and the select committee notes that for the 2022-23 period two main appropriations cover services by the two new agencies Te Whatu Ora and Te Aka Whai Ora which accounts for more than 80 percent of Vote Health.The Estimates identify that $11.71 billion has been set aside for delivering hospital and specialist services and $7.9 billion has been set aside for the delivery of primary community public and population health services. I also note that our hearing with the Minister of Health was timely in that it was nine days prior to the commencement of the new health system. Funding is provided for within Vote Health for the initiative known as Service Integration for Locality Provider Networks and we heard from the Minister that these localities will work with others to set local priorities and that Te Whatu Ora will reflect these in the New Zealand Health Plan and will report on those outcomes that have been achieved.The committee was also and is still interested in how resources will be allocated to locality plans and also iwi Māori partnership boards alongside any ongoing role that primary health organisations and Whānau Ora may have with distribution of funding. The Health Committee heard the Minister acknowledge the extraordinary pressures that some hospitals are facing and cited innovative ways that the sector was trying to alleviate some of those pressures. On the health workforce development front the Minister also advised the committee that Budget 2022 had a large emphasis on developing Māori and Pasifika workforces following the valuable role that they played as part of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign and he added that as part of that response Pacific and Māori providers had shown incredible leadership and that the provision of $49.9 million over four years would support Pacific primary and community care provider development.The select committee also had an opportunity to scrutinise the proposed funding of $166.1 million over four years for emergency road ambulance services $90.7 million for emergency air ambulance services $45.7 million in 2022-23 for new mental health initiatives and funding to build the capacity to treat more people experiencing eating disorders. There were two new appropriations that have been established in the vote and these related to the purchase of new medicines—specifically $29 million to cover Pharmac's operational costs and $1.186 billion for purchasing medicines funding that had previously been allocated to DHBs. The select committee heard that Budget 2022 proposed an additional $191 million over two years to increase Pharmac's medicines budget. Now we heard that this was one of the biggest funding boosts that Pharmac has had in a Budget and that there would be capacity within the health system to administer the additional treatments that would be funded.The committee also reported back on our analysis of the COVID-19 - related appropriations and our report in this regard touches on new COVID-19 variants COVID-19 Protection Framework settings and vaccines measures to protect tamariki and the care in the community model. This of course was also alongside our scrutiny of isolation and quarantine management.Finally I thank committee colleagues and the Ministers who appeared at the committee. As I have previously indicated in the committee's report it is the position of the Parliament's Health Committee that we recommend the relevant appropriations be accepted.