Verrall Ayesha; Reti ShaneHon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): Thank you Mr Chair. I want to ask a question about hospital doctors. We noted that there had been as the House had discussed earlier in the day a more modest increase in filling doctor vacancies—both specialist and resident medical officers—during the year under review.We were informed by the deputy chief executive Andrew Slater that Te Whatu Ora was 1700 doctors short and a forecast 3500 short in 10 years' time. I'm aware that Te Whatu Ora currently has a hiring freeze in those vacant positions; not just newly created vacant positions but vacant positions that might be vacant because your colleague has retired are all being reviewed and potentially cut. So my question is: given that costs increase as we've been told at the committee by the chief executive when locums have to be used have we sacrificed the long-term financial sustainability of Te Whatu Ora for short-term meeting this year's Budget with the hiring freeze that's underway?Another question linked to these themes of workforce and costs—there are a number of pay-equity claims that were settled during the year under review but one that was not is the pay equity for care and support workers in the funded sector. My question to the Minister is: does there continue to be a contingency for settling that claim or has that contingency been returned to the centre?Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you Mr Chair. To address that member's questions certainly anything coming up in Budget time is Budget sensitive and I have no intention of discussing that. I can reassure her that as of today the pay-equity contingency remains. It is unchanged. I believe it was established about six weeks before the general election. I'd have to check that but it was certainly established in the last year and as we speak today it remains. I want to come back to my colleague the chair of the select committee who raised the question around planned care and I'd refer him to the clinical performance metrics report which is the last quarterly report at the end of the period in question and the statement here from Health New Zealanders: Nationally there has been an increase in the number of patients waiting for more than four months for first specialist assessment." So the very general trend that this would seem to suggest is that over this review period first specialist assessments have increased.For the surgical wait list itself again this quarterly performance report at the end of the period in question says "Overall the number of patients waiting longer than four months for treatment has increased." So that report at the end of this period shows increasing wait lists. And if we look at one of the other measures which she didn't ask about which is also commonly placed together it's around emergency department times and particularly the shortest day. In emergency department times the quarterly report suggests a deteriorating performance for emergency department times: "Nationally the proportion of ED stays under six hours has decreased." So generally in planned care this is for the quarter but over the year all the evidence would suggest that it's been a struggle for any number of reasons not the least of which it was the first year of health reforms. And so this massive massive change—there was still a tail of COVID that was having an impact as well.We've already talked about in various other forums the differing views around whether there's a focus on targets or not a focus on targets. I think this combination of things amongst other things accounts for that challenging performance which I would say is still challenging. I've said before what was hard for them is actually going to be hard for us too. That's a reality. And so we're working our way through that. But to answer his question—and I'll come back to immunisation in another call—but the evidence is from those quarterly reports that both our first specialist assessments elective surgery and shorter stays in emergency departments were deteriorating."