The ACT Party says it will take the health system off "life support" by "cutting red tape" — including allowing the ministers the ability to override medical regulatory bodies.
It would also make changes aimed at encouraging more migrant medical professionals, by creating a process for recognising their professional credentials when they were from countries with "comparable healthcare systems".
The party also said it would enable physician assistants to take on more responsibilities, easing the pressure off the stretched GP workforce.
The party's health spokeswoman and deputy leader Brooke van Velden said the party was "cutting red tape to ease the health workforce crisis".
"Kiwis deserve a flourishing health system, not one on life support.”
She said emergency departments were "overflowing" and patients were languishing on surgery waitlists.
"It's harder than ever to get seen by a doctor. Health and medical professionals are doing their best to provide Kiwis the care they need when they need it, but they're overworked and feeling burnt out."
She said the Government was "focused on burning billions of dollars shuffling deck chairs and changing administration" and patient flow indicators — which monitor waiting times for elective surgery against expectations — had been poor for all districts for 12 months.
"If we don't address the fundamental problems with the regulatory system, the situation could get worse given our ageing population and nearly half of all GPs plan to retire in the next 10 years."
She said New Zealand was "turning away" qualified and experienced migrants who wanted to work in New Zealand.
"Rather than embracing these qualified workers with open arms, New Zealand sets up impossible bureaucratic hoops for migrants to jump through, causing even the keenest migrant to leave our country for more welcoming shores. New Zealand must do better."
GPs were also scarce, she said, with more pressure on the workforce expected — something that could be alleviated by enabling physician assistants to take on more responsibilities.
"To take the pressure off, and to ensure Kiwis are able to access primary healthcare when they need it, GPs should have access to a team of professionals who can offer complementary skills.
"Embracing new models of care does not mean compromising on the quality of patient care. Patients visit their local GP for a variety of reasons and their treatments require different levels of complexity.
"Lower complexity needs could include access to repeat prescriptions, ordering and interpreting lab tests, or diagnosing and treating common maladies such as ear infections."
ACT would also give the Health Minister — in any administration — the power to override a regulatory authority's decision or processes "if the minister believes the authority’s processes, practices or registration/accreditation criteria go beyond what is necessary to protect the health and safety of the public".
"Health profession authorities — the bodies responsible for the registration and oversight of health professions — wield a large amount of power in influencing the size of the health workforce.
"Yet they do not face sufficient incentives to undertake activities or implement registration and accreditation criteria where doing so could threaten their own careers in the profession they practice in."
Regulatory bodies include the Nursing Council, which is responsible for the registration of nurses. It's "primary function", according to its website, is to "protect the health and safety of members of the public by ensuring that nurses are competent and fit to practise".
Van Velden said ACT also wanted to "improve health workforce planning with intelligent forecasting".
"Te Whatu Ora has projections for staffing levels that will be needed in 2032 in order to maintain current rates of staffing. However, such projections leave out key issues like population ageing, and the projections assume that models of care, training pathways and retention approaches will not change.
"ACT says we need to use intelligent forecasting which embraces conditions of uncertainty in order to enable innovation and the development of new models of care."
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