Thank you for contacting the Hon Simeon Brown, Minister of Health,
Minister for State Owned Enterprises, and Minister for Auckland.

The Minister’s office is closed from midday 24 December and reopens on 7
January 2026. 

If the topic of your correspondence falls outside of the Minister's
portfolio responsibilities, expresses a personal view, or is copied to
multiple Members of Parliament, then your email will be noted, and it may
be transferred to another Minister’s office, or there may be no further
response to you.

If your correspondence is related to a constituent matter, please get in
touch with the Minister’s electorate team by email
at[1][email address]

 

If it’s a medical emergency – call 111

This can include chest pain or tightness, difficulty breathing, choking,
severe bleeding or bleeding that won’t stop, sudden weakness or difficulty
talking, fainting or unconsciousness.

 

Associate Health Ministers

Please note that all emails are read, however please do not expect a
response from this office if your email relates to the below matters as
these responsibilities are delegated to Associate Ministers of Health.

·       Hon Matt Doocey, Minister for Mental Health and Associate Minister
of Health. If your matter relates to mental health, neurodiversity,
nutrition, or rural health, you can contact Hon Doocey by emailing
[2][email address].

·       Hon Casey Costello, Associate Minister of Health. If your matter
relates to emergency services, women’s health, aged care, or smoking and
vaping, you can contact Hon Costello by emailing
[3][email address].

·       Hon David Seymour, Associate Minister of Health. If your matter
relates to Pharmac, Medsafe, or medicines funding and supply, you can
contact Hon Seymour by emailing [4][email address].

Further delegations details of Associate Ministers of Health can be found
[5]here.

Other health support and services

·       Healthline – call free on 0800 611 116

·       If you’re concerned or not sure about something

·       If you can’t access a GP or you don’t have one

·       For advice about what’s happening for you and next steps

·       If you want advice on finding services near you visit
[6]Healthpoint.

·       If you want information on COVID-19, call the COVID-19 Healthline
on 0800 358 5453.

·       If you are feeling stressed, a bit overwhelmed or just need
someone to talk to Freecall or text 1737 any time for support from a
trained counsellor.

·       Call the Vaccination Healthline for information about COVID-19,
flu, MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella), Boostrix (whooping cough) on 0800
28 29 26 8AM – 5:30PM Monday to Friday.

·       You can also visit: [7]bookmyvaccine.health.nz.

·       If you or your family are not happy with public health services
received, you can [8]contact Health New Zealand.

·       If you would like to raise a complaint about a health and
disability service,  you can also [9]contact the Health and Disability
Commissioner.

 

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. mailto:[email address]
3. mailto:[email address]
4. mailto:[email address]
5. http://www.dpmc.govt.nz/our-business-uni...
6. https://www.healthpoint.co.nz/
7. https://bookmyvaccine.health.nz/
8. https://www.tewhatuora.govt.nz/corporate...
9. https://www.hdc.org.nz/making-a-complain...

Dear Sam,

Thank you for your Official Information Act 1982 (the Act) request, received on XXX, in which you requested the following information:

1. Ministerial/Privacy performance, delays, and compliance

a. Copies of internal reports, dashboards, or analyses (including metrics, KPIs, or performance data) showing MOH or Health NZ’s compliance with OIA timeliness obligations for the 2024 and 2025 calendar years.
b. Any reviews, audits, or internal evaluations of OIA handling processes undertaken since 1 January 2024, including action plans or changes implemented in response to findings that OIA performance was below statutory requirements.
c. Records of any correspondence between MOH, Health NZ and the Office of the Ombudsman regarding delays, refusals, or compliance obligations, including the agency’s responses to Ombudsman findings in last calendar year.
d. Records of any correspondence between MOH, Health NZ and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner regarding delays, refusals, or compliance obligations, including the agency’s responses to Privacy Breach findings in last calendar year.

2. Private hospital outsourcing contracts

a. The total value of all elective surgery contracts awarded to private hospitals from 1 January 2024 to present, including contract term lengths, provider names, and the criteria used to select each provider.
b. Any cost-benefit or value-for-money analyses/assessments undertaken by Health NZ related to outsourcing elective surgeries to private providers.
c. Copies of legal advice received by Health NZ regarding disclosure obligations for contract pricing under the OIA or other statutory obligations.

3. Staffing and recruitment delays for Health NZ and MOH

a. Official data (including spreadsheets or datasets where available) showing average and median approval times for recruitment requests for clinical and frontline roles across all regions for the period March 2024–December 2025.
b. Any internal correspondence or reports assessing the impact of staffing recruitment delays on service delivery or patient care outcomes.

4. Patient safety and incident reporting

a. Copies of annual summaries of serious and sentinel event reporting from 2022 to 2025, or the most recent versions prepared by Health NZ and MOH b. Records describing any changes made to incident reporting systems or quality and safety staffing levels since 1 January 2024.

5. Data governance for digital health systems

a. Any reports, risk assessments, or governance documents relating to the ManageMyHealth patient portal data breach and subsequent cybersecurity improvements, including full timelines of corrective actions taken by Health NZ or the Minister or Ministry.
b. Copies of contracts or procurement records relating to the Shared Digital Health Record system awarded in 2025.

6. Any regular dashboards or public health surveillance data sets maintained or distributed by Health NZ for diseases such as measles (for 2025), including definitions and data.

Your request will be answered within the provisions of the Official Information Act.

Kind regards,
Office of Hon Simeon Brown
Minister of Health, Minister for State Owned Enterprises, Minister for Auckland

Email: [email address]
Private Bag 18041, Parliament Buildings, Wellington 6160, New Zealand

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Tçnâ koe,

 

Thank you for your email. 

 

Under the Official Information Act (OIA), agencies are required to respond
to requests for official information as soon as reasonably practicable and
no later than 20 working days after receiving them.

If your request is for data that Health NZ holds, have you checked
[1]Lighthouse first to see if the data you are seeking is already
published?

 

Lighthouse is a searchable catalogue that makes a range of data and
analytics products available to New Zealanders to enable easier, faster
access to insights about health services.

 

You can find further information about how OIA timeframes are calculated,
including the Ombudsman’s OIA calculator, at the link below:
[2]Official information calculators | Ombudsman New Zealand

 

We will provide a response to your request in line with the statutory
timeframes set out in the OIA.

We appreciate your understanding and patience during this time.

 

Ngâ mihi,
Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora.

Statement of confidentiality: This email message and any accompanying
attachments may contain information that is IN-CONFIDENCE and subject to
legal privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use,
disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have
received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and
delete this message

References

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1. https://www.tewhatuora.govt.nz/for-healt...
2. https://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/agen...

Kia ora Sam

 

Thank you for your request under the Official Information Act 1982 (the
Act), which was received by this Office on 20 January 2026.

 

I am writing to advise you that your request is more closely connected
with the functions of both Health New Zealand and the Ministry of Health.
Therefore, this Office has decided to transfer your request to those
agencies under section 14(b)(ii) of the Act.

 

Health New Zealand will be responding to all parts of your request. The
Ministry of Health will be responding to Question 1, and Question 5(a).

 

You can contact these agencies at:

o Health New Zealand – [1][email address]
o Ministry of Health – [2][email address]

 

Under section 28(3) of the Act, you have the right to ask the Ombudsman to
review any decisions made under this request. The Ombudsman may be
contacted by email at: [3][email address] or by calling 0800
802 602. 

 

Ngā mihi

 

Reuben

Private Secretary (Health) | Office of Hon Simeon Brown

Minister of Health, Minister for State Owned Enterprises, Minister for
Auckland
 

Private Bag 18041, Parliament Buildings, Wellington 6160, New Zealand

 

show quoted sections

Tēnākoe, 

Thank you for contacting Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora. 
This is an automatic reply to confirm that we have received your email. 

Depending on the nature of your request you may not receive a response for
up to 20 working days. 
We will try to respond to your query as quickly as possible.

Ngā mihi

Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora.

Statement of confidentiality: This email message and any accompanying
attachments may contain information that is IN-CONFIDENCE and subject to
legal privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use,
disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have
received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and
delete this message

Kia ora,

I am emailing regarding your request transferred which was transferred to
Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora (Health NZ) from the Office of Hon
Simeon Brown on 20 January 2026, for the following information made under
the Official Information Act 1982 (the OIA):
 
1. Ministerial/Privacy performance, delays, and compliance
 
a. Copies of internal reports, dashboards, or analyses (including metrics,
KPIs, or performance data) showing MOH or Health NZ’s compliance with OIA
timeliness obligations for the 2024 and 2025 calendar years.
b. Any reviews, audits, or internal evaluations of OIA handling processes
undertaken since 1 January 2024, including action plans or changes
implemented in response to findings that OIA performance was below
statutory requirements.
c. Records of any correspondence between MOH, Health NZ and the Office of
the Ombudsman regarding delays, refusals, or compliance obligations,
including the agency’s responses to Ombudsman findings in last calendar
year.
d. Records of any correspondence between MOH, Health NZ and the Office of
the Privacy Commissioner regarding delays, refusals, or compliance
obligations, including the agency’s responses to Privacy Breach findings
in last calendar year.
 
2. Private hospital outsourcing contracts
 
a. The total value of all elective surgery contracts awarded to private
hospitals from 1 January 2024 to present, including contract term lengths,
provider names, and the criteria used to select each provider.
b. Any cost-benefit or value-for-money analyses/assessments undertaken by
Health NZ related to outsourcing elective surgeries to private providers.
c. Copies of legal advice received by Health NZ regarding disclosure
obligations for contract pricing under the OIA or other statutory
obligations.
 
3. Staffing and recruitment delays for Health NZ and MOH
 
a. Official data (including spreadsheets or datasets where available)
showing average and median approval times for recruitment requests for
clinical and frontline roles across all regions for the period March
2024–December 2025.
b. Any internal correspondence or reports assessing the impact of staffing
recruitment delays on service delivery or patient care outcomes.
 
4. Patient safety and incident reporting
 
a. Copies of annual summaries of serious and sentinel event reporting from
2022 to 2025, or the most recent versions prepared by Health NZ and MOH b.
Records describing any changes made to incident reporting systems or
quality and safety staffing levels since 1 January 2024.
 
5. Data governance for digital health systems
 
a. Any reports, risk assessments, or governance documents relating to the
ManageMyHealth patient portal data breach and subsequent cybersecurity
improvements, including full timelines of corrective actions taken by
Health NZ or the Minister or Ministry.
b. Copies of contracts or procurement records relating to the Shared
Digital Health Record system awarded in 2025.
 
6. Any regular dashboards or public health surveillance data sets
maintained or distributed by Health NZ for diseases such as measles (for
2025), including definitions and data.
 
Your request, as it is currently worded, is very broad and would require
substantial manual research, collation and consultation effort to gather
all the information within scope. To avoid a refusal of you request under
section 18(f) of the OIA, on substantial research and collation grounds,
we invite you to consider refining or clarifying your request.   

Please refer to the information below, which we hope will assist you in
narrowing the scope of your request. We note this request was also
partially transferred to the Ministry of Health. Questions relating to
their agency will be responded to by the Ministry of Health in due course.
 

1. Ministerial/Privacy performance, delays, and compliance

Regarding Question 1a, Health NZ has released similar information in
another OIA response, reference HNZ00086144 which is publicly available on
the FYI.org website here: [1]Health New Zealand Performance and
Accountability of OIA Handling - a Official Information Act request to
Health New Zealand - FYI. This information may assist you in narrowing the
scope of your query, noting that compliance performance data is also
released at regular intervals and publicly available via the Public
Service Commission’s website: [2]OIA statistics - Te Kawa Mataaho Public
Service Commission.

Correspondence related to investigations by the Ombudsman and Privacy
Commissioner is not considered official information under the OIA. Please
refer page 9 of the Ombudsman’s guidance on what construes official
information at: [3]Making official information requests - A guide for
requesters.pdf.

2. Private hospital outsourcing contracts
c. Copies of legal advice received by Health NZ regarding disclosure
obligations for contract pricing under the OIA or other statutory
obligations.

Legal professional privilege is designed to protect confidential
communications between solicitor and client. It is based on the
impossibility of conducting legal business without professional assistance
and the need for full and unreserved confidence between adviser and client
in order to receive that assistance effectively. Requests for legal advice
are typically refused under section 9(2)(h) of the OIA
to maintain legal professional privilege. To help us provide you with the
information you are most interested in, we would recommend reconsidering
this part of your request. 

3. Staffing and recruitment delays for Health NZ and MOH
b. Any internal correspondence or reports assessing the impact of staffing
recruitment delays on service delivery or patient care outcomes.
 
This part of your request seeking internal correspondence is very broad.
Relevant information may be held by various staff across Health NZ, and
identifying all material within scope would require extensive manual
collation. To locate specific correspondence relating to the impact of
staffing recruitment delays on service delivery or patient care outcomes,
we would have to rely on broad keyword searches.  The results of these
searches would then need to be manually reviewed to determine whether each
piece of correspondence falls within scope of your request. Given the
scale of the work involved, we may need to refuse it under
section 18(f) of the OIA on substantial research and collation
grounds.  To help us provide you with the information you are most
interested in, would you consider narrowing the scope to only include
reports that may exist from the last three months?
 
6. Any regular dashboards or public health surveillance data sets
maintained or distributed by Health NZ for diseases such as measles (for
2025), including definitions and data.

There are a number of data sets publicly available on our website, here:
[4]Data and statistics – Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora.

Section 12(2) of the OIA requires that official information requests be
specified with due particularity, meaning agencies should not have to make
assumptions about which information is being sought to allow us to source
and collate it.   As currently worded, your request lacks due
particularity and we are unable to pinpoint exactly which data sets you
what you are specifically interested in.  However, we note recent
information on measles cases are available online here: [5]Measles cases –
Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora. If you can provide clarity on the
specific data you are interested in, we may be able to point you to the
publicly available data set or provide further assistance. 

We appreciate you are under no obligation to amend your request, but
requests that require substantial collation may refused under section
18(f) of the OIA.  We want to work with you to avoid this and ensure we
are able to provide a response that best meets your needs.

Please let us know before COB 30 January 2026 whether you are prepared to
amend or clarify your request and, if so, how.

Please note, if you do amend or clarify your request, this will be
considered as a new request for the purpose of calculating the maximum
statutory timeframe for response.
 
Ngâ mihi  
 
Government Services
Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora

 
Statement of confidentiality: This email message and any accompanying
attachments may contain information that is IN-CONFIDENCE and subject to
legal privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use,
disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have
received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and
delete this message

References

Visible links
1. https://fyi.org.nz/request/30758-health-...
2. https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/guidan...
3. https://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/site...
4. https://www.tewhatuora.govt.nz/for-healt...
5. https://www.tewhatuora.govt.nz/for-healt...

Kia ora,
 
I am emailing regarding your request which was transferred to Health New
Zealand | Te Whatu Ora (Health NZ) from the Office of Hon Simeon Brown on
20 January 2026, for the following information made under the Official
Information Act 1982 (the OIA):
1. Ministerial/Privacy performance, delays, and compliance
 
a. Copies of internal reports, dashboards, or analyses (including metrics,
KPIs, or performance data) showing MOH or Health NZ’s compliance with OIA
timeliness obligations for the 2024 and 2025 calendar years.
b. Any reviews, audits, or internal evaluations of OIA handling processes
undertaken since 1 January 2024, including action plans or changes
implemented in response to findings that OIA performance was below
statutory requirements.
c. Records of any correspondence between MOH, Health NZ and the Office of
the Ombudsman regarding delays, refusals, or compliance obligations,
including the agency’s responses to Ombudsman findings in last calendar
year.
d. Records of any correspondence between MOH, Health NZ and the Office of
the Privacy Commissioner regarding delays, refusals, or compliance
obligations, including the agency’s responses to Privacy Breach findings
in last calendar year.
 
2. Private hospital outsourcing contracts
 
a. The total value of all elective surgery contracts awarded to private
hospitals from 1 January 2024 to present, including contract term lengths,
provider names, and the criteria used to select each provider.
b. Any cost-benefit or value-for-money analyses/assessments undertaken by
Health NZ related to outsourcing elective surgeries to private providers.
c. Copies of legal advice received by Health NZ regarding disclosure
obligations for contract pricing under the OIA or other statutory
obligations.
 
3. Staffing and recruitment delays for Health NZ and MOH
 
a. Official data (including spreadsheets or datasets where available)
showing average and median approval times for recruitment requests for
clinical and frontline roles across all regions for the period March
2024–December 2025.
b. Any internal correspondence or reports assessing the impact of staffing
recruitment delays on service delivery or patient care outcomes.
 
4. Patient safety and incident reporting
 
a. Copies of annual summaries of serious and sentinel event reporting from
2022 to 2025, or the most recent versions prepared by Health NZ and MOH b.
Records describing any changes made to incident reporting systems or
quality and safety staffing levels since 1 January 2024.
 
5. Data governance for digital health systems
 
a. Any reports, risk assessments, or governance documents relating to the
ManageMyHealth patient portal data breach and subsequent cybersecurity
improvements, including full timelines of corrective actions taken by
Health NZ or the Minister or Ministry.
b. Copies of contracts or procurement records relating to the Shared
Digital Health Record system awarded in 2025.
 
6. Any regular dashboards or public health surveillance data sets
maintained or distributed by Health NZ for diseases such as measles (for
2025), including definitions and data.
 
On 27 January 2026, we advised that as it is currently worded, your
request is very broad and would require substantial manual research,
collation and consultation effort to gather all the information within
scope. We asked that your request be amended in order to provide you with
the information and to avoid a refusal under 18(f) of the OIA, as the
information requested could not be made available without substantial
collation or research. 
 
As we have not received a response, your request is refused under section
18(f) of the OIA as the information requested cannot be made available
without substantial collation or research.  
 
If you wish to resubmit your request, we recommend providing a narrower
date range in order to ensure your request is feasibly retrievable.
Additionally, providing date ranges for any parts of your requests for
documents, helps narrow the scope of your request.
 
If you have any questions, please get in touch at
[1][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 [2]www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or by phoning 0800 802 602.
 
Ngâ mihi, 

 

 

Danielle Coe 

Manager (OIA) Government Services
Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora

 

------------------- Original Message

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