No images? Click here
April | Paenga-whāwhā 2026
In this edition of the Health Quality & Safety Commission Te Tāhū Hauora newsletter:
Changes to Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Act 2022
Deterioration Early Warning System: implementation update
Community-acquired pressure injuries
Major Trauma Annual Report 2024/25
Invitation to contribute insights about the health system
Changes to Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Act 2022
The Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Amendment Bill was introduced to Parliament in 2025. It amends the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022. The Amendment Bill includes changes that impact all health entities.
Among other changes, the Bill repeals the health sector principles and New Zealand Health Charter in favour of the Government’s health targets, which provide clear measurable outcomes that all health entities must give effect to.
You can find out more about the Bill and its progress below.
DEWS integration under way
The Deterioration Early Warning System (DEWS) is being integrated into day-to-day practice by the first group of aged residential care facilities participating in the DEWS implementation project.
DEWS is an evidence-based, New Zealand-developed suite of tools that support aged residential care staff to recognise and respond early when a resident may be becoming acutely unwell.
There are 122 facilities participating in phase one of implementation. This means around a quarter of the people who live in aged residential care will have their health monitored by staff using DEWS.
Community-acquired pressure injuries
We are working in partnership with communities to strengthen pressure injury (bed sores) prevention, early recognition, and timely care for Māori and Pacific peoples aged 55 years and over who live at home and are supported by whānau, aiga, and other carers in the Counties Manukau area.
We are using a collaborative approach and working in partnership with Māori and Pacific peoples, consumers, whānau, aiga, carers, health professionals, community leaders, elders, iwi, and local representatives.
This approach values people’s lived experience and the knowledge held by whānau and aiga as essential to shaping meaningful and effective solutions in preventing and caring for people with pressure injuries.
Major Trauma Annual Report 2024/25
The Major Trauma Annual Report 2024/25 reports on major physical trauma incidents across New Zealand.
It is produced by the Trauma National Clinical Network, established as part of the National Clinical Network programme at Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora, funded by ACC.
The Commission is a partner in supporting the Network.
One of the key milestones highlighted in the annual report is the commencement of the national trauma quality improvement project ‘The path of making things right – Te ara whakatika’ led by the Commission.
Invitation to contribute to insights about the health system
We lead the production of a regular insights report that provides information about the quality and safety of the health system.
Read the Quality and Safety reports on our website.
We are in the process of developing our next report and are inviting consumer input. This is a brief questionnaire where you contribute your thoughts about how the health system is operating currently. As part of the questionnaire, you can agree (or not) with other people’s thoughts and ideas.
The results will be compared with views we gathered for the first Quality and Safety Insights Report, conducted in September 2024, to help us determine if things have changed over time.
You can submit your views between 24 April and 1 May.
Patient-reported outcome measures in New Zealand: Results from the adult primary care patient experience survey
This is the first national report on patient‑reported outcome measures (PROMs) in New Zealand. It outlines how PROMs are being implemented and presents results from two measures, EQ‑5D‑5L and Hua Oranga, based on responses from about 56,000 people who had contact with their general practice.
Read Patient-reported outcome measures in New Zealand
Patient experience survey timetables
Timetable outlining the survey periods for the adult hospital inpatient experience survey, adult outpatient experience survey, primary care patient experience survey, home and community support services experience survey.
View the Patient experience survey timetables
Rural-urban variation in Polypharmacy indicators: Key findings from the New Zealand Atlas of Healthcare Variation
This report examines differences in the dispensing rates of long-term medications and specific types of medicines, such as antipsychotics and benzodiazepines, among people aged 65 and over living in rural and urban regions in New Zealand.
The Commission recently hosted the Strengthening consumer and whānau engagement webinar, marking another step in our shared journey to strengthen consumer and whānau engagement with our health sector.
More than 200 people joined the webinar to build on kōrero shared at a previous workshop in Wellington last December.
For those who were unable to join the session, we will share a recording on our website soon.
To hear about upcoming events, please join to the Consumer health forum Aotearoa.
The following opportunities are available for consumers to contribute to health system improvement:
- EOI: Join ‘The path of making things right: Te ara whakatika’ quality improvement project.
- EOI: Join the New Zealand Hip Fracture Registry.
- Survey: Take part in research on Oranga Niho – Restoring balance to the oral health system.
- Submissions open: Ministry of Health – Manatū Hauora Mental health and wellbeing strategy.
This newsletter isn’t designed to be forwarded like a regular email. If you’d like to share it, please use the ‘Forward’ button above – this will open a form where you can enter the relevant contact information. This information is not stored by us and is only used to forward the newsletter.
Want to change how you receive these emails? Preferences | Unsubscribe
 |