"Now that I am enrolled with Hauora Heretaunga I want to enrol my mokopuna here as well, and while they have to wait, it's worth it."
Health Hawke's Bay CEO Phillipa Blakey said there was a growing shortage of GPs across NZ.
"At the same time as demand for healthcare in both general practice and hospitals is increasing due to a growing and ageing population, many more people with multiple long-term conditions are requiring support," she said.
"General practices do their best to meet the needs of existing and new patients, but sometimes demand for care exceeds their ability to meet that demand. They need to prioritise those most in need."
She said Health Hawke's Bay was "very concerned" that people found it difficult to enrol with a general practice and could sometimes, when demand was high, find it difficult to book an appointment for a non-urgent issue.
"There is a need to train more GPs and nurses and make general practice an attractive career option," Blakey said.
"General practice heavily relies on a pipeline of overseas-trained health professionals (particularly GPs) and Covid has impacted significantly on the supply of overseas-trained doctors and nurses."
The Doctors, Ahuriri, one of many GP practices in the region trying to cope with increasing demand. Photo / Paul Taylor
Blakey told Hawke's Bay Today the two support roles of health coaches and health improvement practitioners were relatively new and currently supported 68,000 of the region's population.
The number was set to increase to 134,000 by this time next year, she said.
"These roles are mostly based in general practice. They take the load off GPs and nurses by providing timely access for people in need of support and can devote the time that people need to resolve issues," Blakey said.
"General practices are finding these roles to be very valuable additions to their teams because of the prompt and thorough support they can provide to their patients."
Blakey explained that health coaches were people with life experience and skills which enabled them to support people to develop life skills, manage issues such as long-term conditions and deal with mild to moderate life challenges.
"They coach, equip and support people by giving them tools to better look after themselves," she said.
"Health Improvement Practitioners are qualified health professionals with experience in supporting people who are experiencing mild to moderate distress from emergent life events.
"They will typically see over half of the people on the same day they present. They provide people with a range of self-help tools to provide immediate relief and impact."
Phillipa Blakey is the chief executive officer for Te Oranga o Te Matau-a-Maui/ Health Hawke's Bay. Photo / Supplied
Blakey said the Health and Disability Sector reforms included an emphasis on addressing workforce shortages across the sector, which would help to address the issue of GP shortages at a national level.
"At Health Hawke's Bay we have a range of actions underway, working with general practices, to ensure that everything possible is being done to recruit more GPs and other health professionals, as well as to identify opportunities for practices to implement new systems and processes to help manage demand for services, such as telephone triage or wider multidisciplinary teamwork."
She said it was important to have an ongoing care relationship with a chosen general practice care team.
"Enrolment with a general practice team facilitates this ongoing care relationship and enables patients to access subsidised care that they cannot access as casual patients," Blakey said.
"If a practice is taking new patients, then enrol there."