Verrall vs Hipkins
Radio NZ reports:
Labour has confirmed it will keep the coalition government’s health targets if elected, while admitting some of its “three free GP visits” could be with a nurse practitioner rather than a GP. …
Verrall confirmed Labour’s approach to the targets while discussing its plan for emergency departments, released on Tuesday.
“We’re going to keep the targets, but what we won’t do is set the targets and then not resource the health system by not hiring any more nurses in order to deliver them,” she said.
When I read this last week, I was really happy. I am a huge believer in targets because they are about accountability. It is about a Government not just saying we are going to spend money, but saying this is the level of service you should get for that money.
I was gutted in 2017 when Labour abandoned both the all of Government Better Public Services targets and the health targets. I said before the election that they should of course come up with their own ones (to reflect their priorities), but not to abandon the concept of accountability.
But they scrapped them all, and we saw how almost every indicator (such as ED waiting times) went south.
So I was so pleased to see Verrall say Labour would keep them. If there is a change of Government, I want a Labour-led Government to be focused on accountability.
But alas I celebrated prematurely.
Simeon Brown tweeted that Chris Hipkins has ignored or ever-ridden his Health Spokesperson and said Labour will scrap all the health targets.
This is significant in that Hipkins and Verrall are obviously at odds on such a fundamental issue, but also depressing at Hipkins desire to avoid all accountability, like last time.