Funding
New Zealand’s health and disability system is mainly funded from general taxation. This page describes where the money is spent.
Vote Health funding allocation
The Ministry of Health allocates more than three-quarters of the $13.983 billion of public funds it manages through government health funding (Vote Health) to district health boards. District health boards use this funding to plan, purchase and provide health services within their areas, including public hospitals and the majority of public health services.
Most of the remaining public funding provided to the Ministry (approximately 20 percent) is used to fund important national services such as disability support, public health, specific screening programmes, mental health, elective services, Well Child and primary maternity services, Maori health and postgraduate clinical education/training.
About 1.6 percent of the $13.983 billion Vote Health funding is spent on the Ministry’s functions in support of the sector and government.
The Government wants services delivered by the right part of the system in order to ensure clinical and financial sustainability. In 2010/11 the Ministry directly purchased about $2.7 billion of health and disability services. Over time, it is possible that some of these services purchased by the Ministry will be devolved nationally, while some services currently purchased by district health boards may be planned and purchased at a national level.
Vote Health does not represent the total money spent on health services in New Zealand. There are other significant funding sources including other government agencies (most notably the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), local government and private medical cover.
In this section
- Lists of the providers of maternity, dental, pharmacy and general practice services who have been funded by the Ministry of Health. Read more
Page last updated: 19 May 2011
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