ACT's Record

ACT has driven many of the Government's important changes in health. The focus has been on getting patients treated and making the system answer for the money it spends. They include:

• Putting need ahead of race: ACT secured the abolition of the Māori Health Authority and the removal of race-based requirements from health law. Bowel screening now starts at 58 for every New Zealander, giving 122,000 more people access in the first year.

• Getting more medicines to patients: Under ACT's stewardship, Pharmac received its largest-ever budget: $6.294 billion over four years. Pharmac has since made 133 decisions to fund medicines or widen access, including 46 cancer medicine decisions. More than 360,000 patients have benefited.

• Cutting medicine red tape: ACT delivered the Rule of Two, allowing a medicine already approved by two trusted overseas regulators to be approved here within 30 days. Patients with stable long-term conditions can now receive 12-month prescriptions, saving up to $105 a year in GP fees. Pseudoephedrine is back on pharmacy shelves.

• Making the health system answer for results: ACT secured a legal requirement for the Government Policy Statement on Health to set measurable targets, with regular monitoring and reporting. Taxpayers can now see whether Health New Zealand is delivering.

• Putting private hospitals to work: ACT backed 10-year contracts with private hospitals for elective surgery. This gives providers the confidence to invest in capacity and means patients can be treated sooner without waiting for the public system to build everything itself.

The coalition Government has not gone as far as ACT would like, but it's gone further than it would have without ACT.