The email
The January 2026 email, released this month, was sent to Tauranga-based physicians by Bay of Plenty interim business leader hospital specialist services – medical, Sharon Turner.
“Payments for additional clinics to clear long wait First Specialist assessments are still able to be approved, given the Government targets around planned care,” Turner wrote.
“However, scrutiny and expectations around this are ever-increasing at a senior level within our wider organisation.”
Turner wrote that all newly scheduled additional clinics “must include” five long-wait first specialist assessments, across all medical services.
The extra clinics were in addition to usual rostered clinics and “specifically intended to optimise delivery against long-wait patients and health targets”.
For usual clinics, Turner said services may continue to “determine their own approach”.
“However, this may also be looked at in the future for services with significant numbers of long wait patients.”
‘People are coming to harm’
In March, the Bay of Plenty Times spoke with Tauranga Hospital respiratory and general physician Dr Suzanne Poole, an Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) union member.
Poole said it was great her department had been given extra money for extra first specialist assessment clinics.
“The problem is … we are being directed to use the resource not by clinical grounds.”
Poole said referrals were graded upon receipt – priority one patients should be seen within four weeks, priority two within eight weeks, and priority three within 120 days.
After 120 days, they became “long-wait patients”.
“They’re the political numbers that they count.”
Having 95% of patients wait less than four months for a first specialist assessment by 2030 was one of five national health targets set by the Government in 2024.
Quarterly progress tracking shows Te Manawataki – the health region Tauranga is part of – at 62.1% at the end of 2025.
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists member and Tauranga Hospital respiratory and general physician Dr Suzanne Poole.
Poole said physicians were told “longest-wait patients” must be seen in additional clinics.
“So even though we as clinicians know that there are people that need seeing sooner, we’re having to see the people that have waited longer.”
In her view: “People are coming to harm, I mean, that’s the reality.”
She was also concerned about the timing, this being an election year.
Poole had no doubt all patients needed to be seen, but preferred the funding be used to see urgent patients first and continue from there.
Health NZ’s initial denial
The Bay of Plenty Times put Poole’s concerns to Health NZ in March.
Health NZ Bay of Plenty chief medical officer Dr Kate Grimwade said all patients were prioritised based on clinical need, and those with the greatest were seen first.
Once clinical priority had been considered, patients were generally scheduled by wait time.
Grimwade said this recognised that patients on a waitlist for a long time were also of clinical concern. Their conditions may be progressing or they may have spent extended periods without specialist management, she said.
“Addressing these long waits is therefore an important focus alongside, but not at the cost of, urgent clinical need.”
Grimwade said Health NZ introduced additional clinics at Tauranga Hospital over the past year to help reduce wait times.
“There has been no directive that overrides clinical prioritisation …”
In April, ASMS executive director Sarah Dalton said several members raised concerns in February that their clinical decisions on allocating first specialist appointments were being “overridden by managers”.
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Sarah Dalton.
She said sicker patients should be seen before longer-waiting patients.
“If that standard of care is being overridden in our public health system due to a fixation on targets, that’s a real problem because that’s putting politics over patient need.”
In response, Health NZ referred back to Grimwade’s prior statement.
The Bay of Plenty Times contacted Health NZ again this week after receiving Turner’s email, in response to an Official Information Act request.
Grimwade said Health NZ took patient safety and equitable access to care very seriously and clinical need remained the “primary factor” for prioritising patients for assessment and treatment.
Grimwade said the email related specifically to managing additional clinics established to address long wait times for first specialist assessments.
The aim was to “improve consistency in how long-wait patients are seen” and ensure those waiting the longest were appropriately prioritised.
“This does not override clinical judgement or prioritisation based on clinical need and clinicians have continued to schedule additional clinics where necessary to see patients urgently or manage time-sensitive treatment.
“We acknowledge that the wording of the email may not have clearly conveyed this distinction, and we recognise how this may have led to some confusion.
“However, the intent was to standardise an approach to a particular group of long-wait patients, not to change the wider approach to clinical prioritisation.”
Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and the Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.