Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will answer questions after a week-long trade trip to China, where domestic issues – including the alleged conduct of Justice Minister Kiri Allan towards staff – dominated headlines at home.
Health Minister Ayesha Verrall will join Hipkins for the 3pm post-Cabinet briefing. You can watch the livestream above.
Hipkins was in China for a week doing a series of high level political meetings including with President Xi Jinping as well as business meetings with New Zealand exporters. At home, Allan faced questions after allegations she yelled and screamed at staff. She denies the allegations.
The Government on Monday morning announced a pay equity offer for nurses employed by Te Whatu Ora, adding $1.5 billion to an interim pay equity settlement.
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Nathan McKinnon/Stuff
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins visits Shanghai.
Verall also revealed new measures to make it easier for people to get cataract surgery, introducing a nationally consistent threshold for surgery, and a consistent process for future waitlists.
The plan will mean about 2500 more surgeries will be delivered, she said. There were “wildly different” thresholds under the district health board system, she added. Now, a patient will need to get a score of 46 in order to qualify for surgery.
“Standardising access thresholds, including for cataract surgery, was identified as a priority by the Planned Care Taskforce in its Reset and Restore Plan last year. For decades the former DHBs used a point system that had wildly differing thresholds for access to cataract surgery – largely varying from 46 to 61 points,” she said.
“A score of 46 means patients with mildly reduced vision as a result of cataracts will have much earlier access to surgery, improving their quality of life considerably.”
Verall on Sunday signalled the Government would release its plan to tackle workforce shortages.
“We’ll be able to release a piece of work we’ve done around the workforce and gaps later in the week,” she said.
