19 September 2025
James Anderson
[FYI request #32140 email]
Tēnā koe James
Your request for official information, reference: HNZ00097197
Thank you for your email on 3 September 2025, asking Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora
(Health NZ) for the following under the Official Information Act 1982 (the OIA):
“Could you please provide a statistical analysis of the cancer diagnosis in New Zealand
from the year 2020 through to the current year.
Also, I would like to see statistics on how many nurses left to work overseas in the last
twelve months leading up to June and how many are projected to leave between now and
when they receive the final 1% of their 3% payrise in June 2026.
If a detailed analysis of any of the requested statistical information is unavailable to or
rejected by you, I would also appreciate detailed information as to why such information is
not obtained, held or not otherwise in the public interest to be released."
Response
For clarity I wil respond to each request separately.
Could you please provide a statistical analysis of the cancer diagnosis in New Zealand from
the year 2020 through to the current year.
The Health NZ web tool provides data to the end of 2022. Cancer registrations data to the end of
2023 wil be updated in December this year.
After the close of a calendar year, there is a 12 to18 month process to complete the registrations.
Once the Cancer Registry (NZCR) team (within Health NZ) receives reports from all pathology
laboratories of malignant tumours first diagnosed in New Zealand (excluding simple skin cancers),
they register the cancers in accordance with international standards. Additional diagnoses of
cancer come from hospitalisation, mortality and radiation oncology data.
The registration process includes assigning codes for the site, type and stage of the cancer and
many other variables such as date of diagnosis, extent of disease and specific biomarkers.
The data is then subjected to further analysis and review to confirm the accuracy and
completeness prior to publication.
The information about cancer registration can be found at:
https://www.tewhatuora.govt.nz/for-
health-professionals/data-and-statistics/cancer/data-web-tool and
https:/ tewhatuora.shinyapps.io/cancer-web-tool/.
“Also, I would like to see statistics on how many nurses left to work overseas in the last
twelve months leading up to June.”
Health NZ does not record whether nurses choose to leave Health NZ to specifically work
overseas, therefore, your request for this information is refused under section 18(e) of the OIA as
this information does not exist.
However, we can provide you with some information about the number of nurses who have left
Health NZ for various reasons between June 2024 to March 2025. Please note, this information is
subject to the following caveats:
• Health NZ District data was extracted from the Health Workforce Information Programme
database on 01/09/2025.
• Data includes permanent and fixed term employees and excludes contractors, employees
on long term leave, parental leave, leave without pay and those with zero contracted hours.
• Employee Count is a distinct count of individual employee numbers. There is the potential
for individuals to be counted more than once if they have roles in more than one
Occupation Group.
• All Full Time Equivalent (FTE) values are contracted FTE (where 1 FTE = 2086 hours per
year).
• Data has been included from 18 Health New Zealand Districts.
• Nursing count shows those coded under ANZSCOs within the HWIP Nursing Occupation
Group. This wil include Nurse Managers, Nurse Educators, Nurse Researchers, Nurse
Practitioners, Nursing Clinical Directors, Registered Nurses and Enrolled Nurses.
• Health NZ National Of ice or Shared Service Agency employees are excluded.
• Leavers includes both voluntary and involuntary leavers - involuntary leavers are those
reported as leaving a district for reasons such as restructure, redundancy, dismissal, death,
or for health reasons. It also includes those on a fixed term where their contracted ended.
• Leavers include people who leave one district to work in another, but due to the
anonymised nature of the HWIP collection, we are unable to identify and exclude
movements between Districts.
• Leavers are employees whose reported employment end date was between 1 April 2024 to
31 March 2025.
Nursing Leavers June 2024 – March 2025
Employee Count
Contracted FTE
3236
2525.2
“And how many are projected to leave between now and when they receive the final 1% of
their 3% payrise in June 2026.”
Health NZ does not hold this information; therefore, this part of your request is refused under
section 18(e) of the OIA as this information does not exist.
How to get in touch
If you have any questions, you can contact us at
[email address].
If you are not happy with this response, you have the right to make a complaint to the
Ombudsman. Information about how to do this is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or
by phoning 0800 802 602.
Nāku iti noa, nā
Danielle Coe
Manager, Government Services
Health New Zealand I Te Whatu Ora
