Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has this morning defended the health reforms which saw district health boards replaced with Te Whatu Ora, amid criticism of the changes from the public health agency's ousted chairman Rob Campbell.
Campbell called the reforms a "half-baked cake" in a speech to the Fabian Society in Wellington yesterday.
"It gave me the chance... to do what you might call a one-person exit interview," he told Breakfast this morning.
The ousted Te Whatu Ora chairman said the changes hadn't gone far enough. (Source: Breakfast)
"It's important, I think, not to wait until something has crashed and burned to try and do something about it.
"What I've said is there's a whole lot of things that the reform programme got wrong, there's a whole lot of things that in the implementation haven't been done well, but the last bit of the talk is about what we can do to get on the front foot," he said.
"Everyone knows that there are many things not working in the health system today."
Campbell argued the changes didn't go far enough, saying the new system is still working with the "same machine" and same people.
Asked what his message to the prime minister would be, Campbell said: "It is a critical space, there's a crisis.
"It's cost of living, it's cost of ill health, it's cost of dying. There's no more cost of living issue than this.
"It's great that you have taken away the key rings from the publicists and the consultants who are around," he added, referring to yesterday's announcement of new rules for lobbyists in Parliament.
"What you should do is lock the door and listen to the people who are working in the system, because they do know the answers.
"I don't mean the bureaucrats... I mean the people on the ground doing the work.
"Our job and your job is to support them and deliver what they need to have a good health system."
'No silver bullet here' - PM
Chris Hipkins' comments come after former Te Whatu Ora chairman Rob Campbell hit out at the changes. (Source: Breakfast)
Appearing later on Breakfast, Hipkins responded: "It's a big reform programme, and we're only part-way through it.
"There is still a lot of work to be done."
He added that Campbell "was put in charge of overseeing these health reforms for a reason".
"There's no significant policy disagreement in terms of the direction of travel that the Government was heading in and is heading in, and what Rob Campbell was trying to achieve in that previous role," he said. "That's not the reason that he's not still in that job."
Campbell was sacked as chairman of Te Whatu Ora and chairman of the Environmental Protection Authority after making political comments on LinkedIn when he was subject to a code of conduct which includes provisions around public service impartiality.
Campbell has argued the dismissals were about the Government distancing itself from co-governance.
Asked about Campbell's assertion the health system "has its back turned" on the people it's supposed to serve, Hipkins stressed that Campbell also argued the previous system needed to change.
"We agree with him that the system needs to change, and we'd agree that it needs to be more patient-focused," he said.
"The previous system was incredibly bureaucratic with 20 different district health boards and a range of different processes and systems that meant that patients' needs weren't always front and centre."
Hipkins also agreed there needs to be greater focus on primary care.
"Those are all essential ingredients of our overall health strategy, and there's a lot of work to be done," he said.
"We're got to train more GPs, we've got to make sure that we're beefing up our primary care, we've got to continue to work with pharmacies to make sure we're addressing the issues that they're raising so that they can continue to support communities.
"There's no silver bullet here... Ultimately, I don't disagree with the sort of vision that [Campbell] is talking about, that is the vision that's behind the health reforms."
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