Doocey Matt; Little AndrewMATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much Madam Chair. A good choice I believe. Can I start by acknowledging Dr Liz Craig with her recent announcement—I see via email—of her promotion to Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Health I believe it is. Sadly it sounds like she'll be leaving the Health Committee and chair. I'd just like to acknowledge the great work that she's done over the course of what must have been several years as chair. So congratulations.We are reviewing years 2020 and 2021 and I think what we learnt from bringing the DHBs in front of the Health Committee was further insight to ballooning waiting times in our mental health services despite what's been announced as a considerable investment. So if we take a couple of examples: Taranaki District Health Board for their Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) wait times have gone from 22 days in 2016-17 to 52 days. That's an increase of 30 days now that young people in Taranaki are waiting under this Government. Another one was Waitematā District Health Board where their wait time for CAMHS in 2016-17 was 17 days; now it's at 31 days. And I think for those who will read the summary report it's fair to say that level of direct increase in waiting times was across most of the DHBs.So I'd like to hear from the Minister of Health why he thinks that his increased investment into mental health has not worked why we are seeing skyrocketing waiting times and what plans does he have in place that we come back to in the next annual review—which won't be of DHBs of course because we're abolishing them but of the new entity—to make sure young people especially in the time of COVID-19 are receiving timely access to mental health care.Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): In relation to mental health services can I just say that this is a Government that has not spent its time in Government completely and utterly ignoring the mental health challenges that are evident in this country—by comparison to the previous Government which spent nine years ignoring an emerging health crisis. And so I'm very proud to be part of a Government that has invested starting in 2019 $1.9 billion to address the single biggest gap identified by an independent review in our mental health services which was the primary healthcare end of mental health services and for people with mild to moderate mental health issues. I'm very pleased to report to the House that we now have 337 GP practices covering roughly 45 percent of the enrolled patient population; roughly 900 fulltime-equivalent roles new roles in the front line of mental health providing support to those with mild to moderate mental health issues—and there are people who are getting that support getting that help every day right across the country. And of course we are part-way through the programme. We are about 2½ years through a four- to five-year programme. We've had a few delays as a consequence of COVID-19 so we have a wee ways to go yet and that work is progressing.We have some challenges now in the acute and specialist end of mental health services. What the figures show generally speaking is that across the country wait times have not significantly changed on average across the country but there are isolated areas where there have been major challenges. In Taranaki we know there have been major staffing issues with their mental health services that that DHB is in the process of getting on top of.Across all these services new investment has gone into facilities because that's another area that was left completely neglected and run down. It turns out a lot of our acute mental health facilities are no longer suitable therapeutic environments for people needing to recover from serious mental health issues.I want to add too the next big challenge I think we have because I know members opposite sometimes think that we've just got to add more beds to acute mental health services. The challenge that leaders of the acute mental health facilities tell me isn't that we need more beds at that end of their mental health services; there are people in our mental health units who were it for better community-supported facilities would not be in those acute facilities. The need is not at the acute end in terms of bed space; it's actually in community facilities with decent support—the sort of work that is happening with Hawke's Bay District Health Board and their facility that they're in the process of setting up which is a peer-supported facility for those with lived experience supporting those being discharged and helping them get their lives back together in the community. And that's I think where the next big challenge lies.But one thing I can assure this House is that we don't ignore serious problems. We see the serious problems and we work with clinicians with professionals with others to address those problems. We don't fix them overnight because we want long-term and enduring solutions but we do fix problems and we take time to do it properly.