Synergia - Design Realise Sustain

Cardiac Surgery Prioritisation

Issue

For the last decade the New Zealand Ministry of Health has been committed to increasing the productivity and reducing waiting times for elective surgery. The rationing of limited resources and the prioritisation of access to people most in need has been central to achieving these goals. A key component off the solution which has driving huge advances over the 10 years has been the development of a range of assessment tools to increase the consistency of prioritisation for access based on need. Cardiac surgery was one of the initial elective services included in the programme.

A Strategy for Developing Strong Families

Issue

A review of the Child, Youth and Family Services revealed a gap in the leadership and co-ordination of services that support families. Government agreed that a new family services function would be set up within the Ministry of Social Development.

Read more: A Strategy for Developing Strong Families

Bringing the flaxroots into regional planning

Issue

Bay of Plenty Regional Council were keen to explore the potential social and economic impacts of key directions in its draft Regional Policy statement. Decision-makers in particular wanted to hear the voices that are often not under-represented in policy debates, particularly Maori and high deprivation communities.

  Read more: Bringing the flaxroots into regional planning

Systemic Approaches to Child Safety

Issue

Child, Youth and Family (CYF) needed to respond to allegations of neglect and abuse against NZ children.

Since 2003, notifications to CYF have increased significantly. The year-end forecast in 2003 was 40,000 notifications. The forecast was close to 65,000 notifications for 2006/2007.

These rapidly increasing rates created wait lists and high numbers of unattended cases. Further, despite intensive efforts to eliminate the problem no approach addressed the fundamental causes of the problem. Read more: Systemic Approaches to Child Safety