Emphasis on good health envisaged

Press, 11 August 1979, Page 22

Emphasis on good health envisaged

PA Wellington •What happens in hospitals in the next decade will largely determine how far New Zealand can move towards policies which put more emphasis on the positive promotion of good health,” said Sir Frank Holmes, chairman of the Planning Council.

Sir Frank was commenting on a meeting he had recently with hospital board chairmen during a conference called by the Minister of Health (Mr Gair) when he discussed the Planning Council’s recent report on the Welfare State.

He said that the council envisaged hospital services being intergrated into a being intregarated into a system of planning for all aspects of health This would be concerned with community as well as institutional services, and with preventive as well as curative approaches. During the meeting. Sir Frank also answered recent criticism by the Hospital Boards' Association of the council for comparing hospital expenditure with figures for other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. The O.E.C.D. countries do not include the same range of services in their spending. He said that most international comparisons needed qualifying because of differences in definition. “We were aware that the New Zealand figure included such items as ambulance services, domiciliary, and outpatient

services and teaching, and that these might not be included for some other countries. We did not therefore put too much weight on the international comparison. But, with all qualifications made, the proportion of public health expenditure devoted to our hospitals is still very high by international standards.” Sir Frank said the difference was greater than the council’s report "The Welfare State?” said. A typographical error on page 44 gave the O.E.C.D. average as 62 per cent. The correct average was 52 per cent. By comparison, he said, expenditure in New Zealand was 71 per cent. Sir Frank also pointed to a mistake in a recent Hospital Boards’ Associ-

ation press statement on the rate of growth of health expenditure. The growth of spending, after discounting for inflation, between 1960 and 1974 was 3.8 per cent a year on average The 2 per cent figure used by the association represented the growth of real expenditure per capita during the period. The per capita increase rose to an average of 3 per cent to 4 per cent a year during the last 5 years.

“During the next decade, the council expects New Zealand’s population to grow quite slowly, said Sir Frank. “If total ' health expenditure grew at 2 per cent a year in real terms, this would represent a per capita growth of about 1.5 per cent a year.”