Hauora | Health

Health and Wellbeing
Hauora me te waiora mō Kāpiti

We know our communities are worried about the lack of availability, and access to affordable health services. One of Council’s ten strategic priorities for the triennium is to shape the design of a health strategy for our district to improve coordination and service provision that meets local need.

We want to look across the spectrum of health services from health promotion, primary care (GPs etc), secondary care (hospital and specialist services), and tertiary care (specialist and residential services) to understand what we need to improve first.

Current challenges

• Access to primary care (GPs): We have 14 GP clinics but 9 of them are not accepting new patients. Visits can be expensive for people on a fixed or lower income.
• Access to hospital and specialist services: Travel time to hospitals or specialist services not available locally can be difficult, especially for people with additional challenges such as disability.
• Access to urgent or emergency care: After hours services are limited to one clinic and Healthline. There are no ambulances based in Kāpiti but the ambulance diversion service has helped avoid people being taken to hospital when an urgent service can be provided by a primary care provider.
• Access to mental health care: Hard to access crisis services and there is a lack of specialist services. People are not sure how to get help.
• Limited care for people with disabilities: A lack of residential and specialist services locally.
• Limited local care for older people: We have a high number of people over 65 years who may need more access to local care than others.

Future possibilities

For our communities to thrive, we need people to be as healthy as possible. We need to look at options like:

• More integrated services: So people only go to one place to get help for many things.
• More innovative services: more services available by distance, over the phone or internet.
• Taking a more holistic approach to health and wellbeing: things like housing, access to good food, social support and connection to things that you value have important consequences for people’s health and overall wellbeing.

Te Whare Tapa Whā model:

The Te Whare Tapa Whā model of health is one model of the holistic nature of wellbeing. It shows different elements that are important for wellbeing and emphasises that they must all be supported for the wellbeing wharenui to work well.

Have your say has now closed for this topic.

View the ideas that were shared below:

1. What are you most concerned/worried about in terms of provision of health care in Kapiti?
   He aha ōu tino āwangawanga/māharahara mō te whakarato o ngā mahi hauora ki Kāpiti?
2. What should we focus on to help people in Kāpiti lead healthy lives?
   He aha hei aro mā mātou kia āwhina i te oranga o ngā tāngata o Kāpiti?