BUDGET 2025: No surprises and little to celebrate for general practice

After a flurry of pre-Budget announcements for primary care, Budget 2025 delivered no surprises today for primary care.

“What is hard to ignore is that the savings the Government are celebrating today come at the expense of fair and equitable pay for women. The primary care nursing pay equity claim was among those suddenly terminated due to the rapid policy change this month, which has real consequences for retention of our nursing workforce, and for improving access to timely, high-quality primary and community care,” said General Practice NZ chief executive Maura Thompson.

For the past three budgets GPNZ has been calling for a significant uplift to general practice funding to begin to address historic underfunding and support sustainability. Today Minister of Health, Simeon Brown stated that ‘additional investment of 7.4 per cent in total funding represents an increase of 6.2 per cent per capita’.

“We’re waiting for confirmation of the funding package available for general practice, knowing that the general practice cost pressure increase this year is 6.4 per cent. Based on the Minister’s statement today, we expect the uplift available to be at least 6.2 per cent,” said Ms Thompson. “There must be no repeat of last year’s situation, which shifted costs on to patients through increased fees.”

Additional funding for Comprehensive Primary and Community Care Teams (CPCT) was notably absent from today’s Budget announcements, despite strong indications that there would be continued support from Government for these essential roles.

“We’ve been pleased by the earlier announcements of additional investment in the primary care workforce, with funding for an increase in GP and nurse practitioner training places and support for new graduate nurses. However, we need to retain and expand other roles in general practice, such as pharmacists, physios and paramedics. These roles are proven to contribute to fewer ED attendances, fewer hospital admissions, shorter appointment wait times, and more tailored wraparound care.”

There is some welcome news from the Budget with new allocations to support transition from hospital to aged care and the 111 mental health response service. However, it is also evident that funding for new cancer drugs has been slow to reach the sector, with underspend returned as savings this year.

“We’ve been keen to progress discussions about how this funding can be used to increase access to cancer drugs in primary and community settings,” Ms Thompson said. “It’s disappointing to see these funds returned, given the urgent needs of patients nationwide. We’ll continue to push for progress.”