Kāpiti Health Advisory Group chairwoman Sandra Daly. Photo / David Haxton
Kāpiti Health Advisory Group chairwoman Sandra Daly. Photo / David Haxton
A specialist advisory group advocates developing the Kāpiti Health Centre into a polyclinic, which would have numerous benefits.
The Kāpiti Health Advisory Group (KHAG) report recommends Health New Zealand and Kāpiti Coast District Council enter into a joint memorandum of understanding to expand services at the Paraparaumu-based centre.
The expansion would “evolve into the Kāpiti Polyclinic providing an integrated health service covering community (including primary), 24/7 urgent care, non-acute hospital diagnosis and treatment, and other support including telehealth”.
It said there was a “compelling need” for improved access to health services in the district.
“Kāpiti is the only New Zealand urban area with more than 50,000 residents where the nearest emergency and hospital services are nearly an hour’s drive away.”
Relative to the rest of the Wellington region, Kāpiti was “disadvantaged” including “access to preventative and higher-end needs services”.
The report picked up from a 2018 petition to Parliament, signed by over 22,400 people, seeking the establishment of a local hospital.
Parliament referred the petition to its health select committee which didn’t support a hospital but did support the availability of necessary health services be made available.
“The importance of the petition wasn’t that it succeeded in achieving a ‘hospital’ but that it highlighted the lack of sufficient access to necessary health services in Kāpiti,” KHAG’s report said.
“Now, in 2024, the petition has contributed to the development of this proposal for a polyclinic.”
It said the purpose of a polyclinic was to “provide a range of medical and other healthcare services in one place”.
“It would offer consultations, tests and treatments for various health issues.
“The intention is to enable Kāpiti Coast residents to access different types of medical services, including diagnostic tests, and to see a range of health professionals by ensuring comprehensive healthcare is delivered in one facility.”
The “defining feature” of a polyclinic would be to “provide health services that cross the primary/community and secondary care divide”.
“This would include 24/7 urgent care, general practice and lower level (non-acute and non-surgical) hospital services (such as outpatient clinics with visiting hospital specialists) along with relevant diagnostic capabilities.
“It would be integrative and, as much as makes good clinical sense, a one-stop shop.”
Some of the available Kāpiti Health Centre land. Photo / David Haxton
It said the polyclinic would be an integral collaborative part of the wider Kāpiti health system, Health New Zealand’s regional health system, and would help reduce the pressure on its hospitals including emergency department presentations.
Several reports had been completed about health services delivery in Kāpiti, recommending, as the health select committee did, that more services be delivered locally, it noted.
“This is very much in line with recent government strategies to deliver services ‘closer to home’ and with the recently released Government Policy Statement on Health (2024-2027) to shift decision-making and resources in the health system closer to communities.
But change had been “very slow” and the district’s population was growing with access to services “becoming more difficult for many”.
KHAG’s Ian Powell, who was the lead author of the report, said, “We understand the pressure our health system is under at present but developing the health centre into a modern polyclinic would deliver numerous benefits including reducing the pressure on the Wellington Hospital emergency department, save on Wellington Free Ambulance trips and save costly and difficult trips for Kāpiti residents.”
KHAG chairwoman Sandra Daly said each year more than 7000 people from Kāpiti had to make a 120km round to Wellington Hospital’s emergency department when they needed urgent care.
“Thousands more trips are made each year to Wellington, Kenepuru and Hutt hospitals for outpatient appointments and inpatient treatments that could be delivered in Kāpiti if the polyclinic was developed.
“The costs, time, public transport and park difficulties that these trips cause are a significant burden for many Kāpiti residents particularly young families and elderly people.”
