According to statistics published in a publication by the Ministry of Health, District Health Boards (DHBs) are improving and giving more surgeries to their patients.

Health Minister Tony Ryall is pleased with this result and said, “Under the previous government, the growth of elective surgery fell well behind population growth. Under National, we’re keeping ahead of population growth by doing 20,000 extra operations a year – that’s 400 extra patients every week”.

He said that it was important for DHBs to communicate with each other in an effort to learn from each other to continue to improve. Whanganui DHB was the top performer for providing elective surgery to its patients.

Ryall released a booklet that outlined some of the ways the DHBs were able to increase their performance, and strategies in the booklet included allowing patients to set their own appointments, the introduction of the National Cardiac Surgery Clinical Network, a push to reduce musculoskeletal surgery, a plan for effective urgent surgeries, and an approach to improving services in urology.

In Whanganui, Minister Ryall will give a ten-minute talk to the public, followed by a question and answer session so the public can have a chance to understand what is going on in the world of health care.