Five good health targets

Shane Reti announced five health targets:

• Faster cancer treatment – 90 per cent of patients to receive cancer management within 31 days of the decision to treat.   
• Improved immunisation for kids – 95 per cent of children to be fully immunised at 24 months of age. 
• Shorter stays in emergency departments – 95 per cent of patients to be admitted, discharged or transferred from an ED within six hours.  
• Shorter wait times for first specialist assessment – 95 per cent of patients to wait less than four months for an FSA.    
• Shorter wait times for treatment – 95 per cent of patients to wait less than four months for elective treatment.

These will be challenging to achieve. Almost every health indicator got far worse under Labour after they abandoned meaningful health targets. But we shouldn’t accept the status quo. Governments should be judged on actual outcomes, not on how much money they spend.

I will blog regular updates on the quarterly data released measuring actual performance against the targets.