NZHR has recommended that the 2022 Budget Policy Statement (BPS):

1.Be amended so that the health section of the living standard framework:

a. affirms that the extent to which New Zealanders live to “a ripe old age” is the most fundamental of indicators of wellbeing, and

b. extends its focus on Covid 19 related mortality to premature mortality from all other causes

2. Includes investment in R&D as one of the components of its fiscal strategy, including the government’s commitment to achieving its 2% of GDP target by 2027

3. Includes “increasing levels of amenable and non-amenable premature mortality” as one of the issues that should be addressed by the BPS’s overarching goal of “laying the foundations for the future”

4. Recognises that increased investment in health research is essential for both meeting wellbeing objective 2 “supporting improved health outcomes for all New Zealanders” (p. 20) and embedding the health reforms (p. 24) and to this end signals:

a. an allocation of an additional $26m of specific and exclusive new health research investment in the 2022/23 budget, with an emphasis on mental health research

b. a commitment in the 2022/23 budget to a three year investment trajectory comprising further year on year increases in specific and exclusive new health research funding of an additional $30.4m in 2023/24, a further additional $35.6m in 2024/25, and a further $41.7 again in 2025/26.

c. formal adoption of a ten-year 2.4% of government healthcare costs health research investment trajectory, representing increases of 17.1% per year

The full submission can be read here