10. Question No. 10—HealthMATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri) to the Minister of HealthQuestion No. 10—Health10. MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri) to the Minister of Health: How many full-time equivalent staff are employed by the Government's $455 million front-line mental health service and how many people have been seen by this front-line mental health service to date?Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): The $455 million that the member refers to is an allocation over four years solely to expand access to and choice of mental health and addiction services in primary health care and community settings. I'm advised that currently 351 full-time equivalents are engaged to deliver access and choice in front-line mental health services across 18 DHBs. That's a significant improvement from where things were at four years ago. To the second part of the member's question not all service providers can report consistently against people's National Health Index numbers. This is a symptom of how fragmented the health system is and is another reason why the Labour Government's committed to the broad direction laid out in the Health and Disability System Review. What I can tell the House is that the funding has so far resulted in 73444 sessions to December and 6578 people were seen in the month of December alone.Matt Doocey: Point of order Mr Speaker. The second leg of that question asked how many people had been seen by the service to date.SPEAKER: The member explained—if the member had listened—right at the beginning of the answer for the second part of it that the fragmented information that he is able to collect couldn't give the exact answer. Hon Member: Yet he gave it one month.SPEAKER: Then he gave I thought more information than was asked for but I thought he was trying to be helpful rather than smart.Matt Doocey: Given the amount of money allocated towards establishing the service does the Minister agree that it would have made sense to keep track of the number of people accessing it to know that he will reach his expected target of 325000 people per year?Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I don't disagree with the member but unfortunately over many years going right back to when that member's party was in Government they allowed the IT systems across the network of DHBs and hospitals to run down to such a point where there is now quite a degree of variability of how data is collected on services that are provided to patients. That is why I cannot give that member an accurate figure or a precise number of those who have been using those services. I can give him a figure on what happens each month but I can't distinguish from one month to the next whether somebody has had treatment over multiple months or not. That is the state of the IT systems in our health sector which is why it urgently needs to be remediated. Matt Doocey: How can the Minister be confident the service will see the expected 325000 people annually by 2023-24 when nearly two years after it was announced the service has only been rolled out to 11 percent of GP practices?Hon ANDREW LITTLE: What the member's figure does is it doesn't distinguish between size of practice. So 11 percent of practices doesn't actually equate to the percentage or proportion of the population covered. What I can say is knowing that of the $455 million appropriated and a rising profile over four years $145 million is expected to have been spent by 30 June this year and so far $99 million has been committed to the end of December—another six months to go. I'm confident that we are on track to fulfil our expectations of the use of that $455 million.Matt Doocey: If the Minister is confident of being on track what is his target for this year of the amount of people to be seen by this new service?Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Well I don't want to reprise the answers I've been giving about just the data that we can collect and therefore how we can measure it. What I can talk about however is the money going out the door. That is going when people get the front-line mental health services that that appropriation was for and we are on track to spend that money as expected when that appropriation was made in 2019.