Government celebrates latest health target results

Tuesday, 30 September 2025

Health Minister Simeon Brown says waitlists are falling, cancer patients are being treated faster and more children are being protected from preventable disease.

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The Government is welcoming the latest health target results, with Health Minister Simeon Brown saying it shows “shorter waits, faster treatment, and more timely access to care are benefiting patients across New Zealand“.

The target results cover April to June this year. The targets themselves are for 2030, with these quarterly results marking the first annual milestone towards that.

The Government brought back health targets in 2024 to improve childhood immunisation, reduce stays in emergency departments, reduce wait times for first specialist appointments and for treatment, and to make cancer treatment faster.

The ED target was to get 95% of patients admitted, discharged, or transferred from an emergency department within six hours. Overall, 74% of patients were within the ED target, up from 72%.

This is despite the average number of people attending emergency departments increasing from 3150 per day in 2021 to 3700 per day in 2025, Brown said.

Within ED, the Wellington area had already fallen to the lowest in the country for wait times. Broken down into district, Capital and Coast was still the lowest at 53%, up from 48.6% in the last quarter.

The Hutt Valley was at 68.5%, up from 61%, while the Wairarapa rose to 78%, up from 62%.

Canterbury sat at 80%, up from 72%.

Stuff reported recently that Wellington was under intense scrutiny over its wait times, partly due to the too-small department size.One proposal, which was met with widespread internal scrutiny and ultimately scrapped, to free up beds and get closer to the target was to redistribute 12 beds from maternity and gynaecology.

The elective treatment target was for 95% of people to wait less than four months for treatment.

The total number of people waiting for an elective procedure was 75,557, with 27,200 waiting more than four months.

Brown said patients waiting less than four months increased by 6.6 points. Capital and Coast was at 70% and the Hutt Valley was at 61% - up from 50%. Canterbury was 67.1%.

For cancer treatment, the target covered 90% of patients having their cancer treatment starting within 31 days of the decision to treat it. That increased from 84% to 86%.

In Capital and Coast, the percentage dropped slightly from 84.4% to 82.4%, while the Hutt Valley increased from 85.5% to 90.4%. Canterbury was at 80.5%.

Shorter wait times for first special assessments - 95% of patients to wait less than four months - increased slightly by 3.8 points, while childhood immunisation - 95% of children fully immunised at 2 years old - was at 82% overall.

Brown said “waitlists are falling, cancer patients are being treated faster with more medicines available, and more children are being protected from preventable disease”.

“There is still more work to do,” he said.

“Too many people are still waiting too long, and we will not stop until every New Zealander has timely access to care. With a record $30 billion annual investment, we are rebuilding the system around patients, holding it accountable, and driving better outcomes.”

It follows widespread strikes over pay and conditions by senior doctors and nurses, who say persistent resource shortages and a lack of beds is undermining their ability to meet health needs.