Over the past few nights Checkpoint has been reporting on the GP shortage that is forcing some people to travel hundreds of kilometres to see a doctor or in some cases wait months to get enrolled in a local clinic.
As many as half the country's GP clinics are not taking on new patients - with a perfect storm of winter illnesses, Covid-19 infections and short-staffing.
Health Minister Andrew Little told Checkpoint people should not have to wait weeks to see their GP.
He said Southern DHB was working to rectify the problems there.
"One of the challenges for the future is, we need, obviously, to increase the number of GPs."
But, he said there also needed to be more involvement from others in the allied health workforce like nurse practitioners, to take some of the burden from GPs' workload.
"There's a bit of rethinking to do ... about what the future of primary care looks like.
"Just having two or three doctors running around the practice and kind of running it in the way that we have done in the past is not going to meet the needs of the future. "
Some primary health organisations had been excellent, he said, but some others, he wondered what they were there for.
"Because they're not improving services for the populations or the GPs they're responsible for."
He said NZ Health was doing "innovative" work and would be in much better shape that DHBs to have a look at primary care.
