One thing the Ministry of Health does have on rare occasions is small bundles of funding for doing some really quite useful things.

We know the emphasis at the ministry is often predominantly on the public health view - whether that is simply because the ministry tends to be populated by public health type people (ex-doctors, ex-nurses, researchers, administrators etc) or something more to do with improving the overall health of the average New Zealander (or maybe a bit of both) might be of some debate.

One could argue the de-Balkanisation of our hospital services should take some priority over matters such as the dangers of asbestos in old ceilings.

Nevertheless, the ministry has set up a database of health resources on the internet, administered by the public health arm. The majority of the resources are simply original artwork in PDF format of most, possibly all of the pamphlets and posters which they have published over the last five years or so.

Manatu Hauora (aka MoH or the Min) makes the health education resources available to the public, including health professionals, to promote a better understanding of public health and preventive measures that contribute to maintaining public health and wellbeing.

The resources are regularly updated or revised to ensure they are as accurate as possible. Each resource is written in a reasonably brief or tele-graphic format and is designed to be easily understood.

Many of the resources are also translated into te reo Maori and "the various community languages of Aotearoa New Zealand". And, while most of the resources are pamphlets or tear off information sheets, there are also some kits, some videos/DVDs, a range of posters, some books, cards, postcards, small signs and stickers.

Many of the pamphlets, in particular, are probably very useful and examples which I have doggedly downloaded for our own practice might include such things as (in no particular order) sexual health guides, pamphlets on most of the STDs, pelvic inflammatory disease, colposcopy, Campylobacter, giardia, TB vaccination, TB disease, latent TB, infant feeding, hepatitis B in pregnancy, glue ear, spiders in New Zealand, mammography pamphlets (calcifications, cysts, mastalgia, fibroadenoma etc), hepatitis A, B and C, headlice, scabies, dental diseases, asbestosis, listeriosis, breech birth and vaginal birth after caesarean.

While it is a bit of a hotch-potch of documents, at least they are available for downloading and also (we are so very, very grateful) for online ordering in pre-printed pads and bundles free.

I recall some years ago visiting our local ministry public health office to ask for a reasonable supply of a wide range of pamphlets and was told this was not possible as they had to keep them to give to people when they came in to their office. Small wonder that just occasionally the role of the general practice team perhaps seems to be misunderstood at the higher echelons of the highly autonomous and slightly ivory-tinted public health hierarchy.

Anyway, on the Healthed website I was delightedly able to tick some eight boxes with the exact number of pamphlets requested for our practice.

Most of the pamphlets we have perhaps seen previously and may have already read. Much of the information contained should not be contentious and we will be getting our practice nurses to regularly update our orders from time to time now that we have found "the source".

The only real criticism I have of the site is the layout of each downloadable PDF publication is highly variable. Some are massive posters, some are in good A4 tear-off pad format but most are highly coloured tri-folded pamphlets.

If the Min is able to do anything helpful to make the site nicer for GPs and their team, then each of the publications could be re-formatted into simple PC printable pages, probably in a preferred Word or RTF format.