Charities Commission Registration CC22512

Meeting the needs of people with chronic conditions   

NZORD's submisssion to the National Health Committee - May 2005   

As part of its responsibility to maintain an overview of health and disability sector systems and planning, the National Health Committee undertook a consultation exercise to identify the key issues in dealing effectively with chronic conditions. Here is the link to their consultation paper. http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexcm/nhc-chronic-conditions-discussionpaper. We are very pleased to see this work being done. NZORD has long felt that there were too many assumptions about chronic disease management that overlooked important issues for many with rare disorders. In particular we have identified complexity combined with chronicity as a likely cause of failures to meet the needs of the patient and their family. We are also concerned that there is too much distinction between disability and health needs when many people with rare disorders have an inter-related combination of both.

Our submission was rushed so we cut corners and simply typed comments into the body of the feedback from, leaving our comments in red to stand out from the form. You can read our submission by following these links to an MS Word version or to a pdf version.

2007 update

The final report of the National Health Committee has been released. NZORD is pleased to note that our submission, and similar messages from other groups, seem to have had some positive impacts on the shape of the final report. The NHC identifies a range of initiatives that should be put in place to improve integration of services within the health sector and with other sectors, assist information flows, reduce silo provision of services, and improve care coordination at a DHB and primary care level. NZORD is pleased to have been a part of the process that influenced this report and its findings. We hope this report will not sit on a shelf but instead have some prompt action to commence its implementation. Click here to read the report from the National Health Committee.