An update on ACC’s Primary Acute Care review

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We have now completed the discovery phase of our Primary Acute Care review, which aimed to evaluate the current state and identify areas for improvement for injury-related primary acute care in the community.

The review placed injured people and their whānau at the centre. This gave us the opportunity to better understand the needs of our kiritaki (clients), and the challenges that providers and suppliers are currently experiencing. It also allowed us to consider how we might improve kiritaki experience, access and outcomes within the primary acute care sector.

Through our research, we uncovered a wealth of provider and client insights and ideas for improvements which we are exploring alongside Health New Zealand in their review of urgent and unscheduled care.

Our snapshot report outlines these opportunities and also summarises the findings for six key areas. 

View the report

Next steps

We’ve reviewed our findings and listened to your feedback, and it has become clear that we need a system-wide approach for acute and after-hours care.

While ACC and Health New Zealand each have our own priorities, responsibilities and legislation, we need to work together to improve the system for New Zealanders and the health providers who care for them.

We are now working with Health New Zealand to determine what a new sustainable model of care could look like into the future. This will set us up to deliver improved equity of access and outcomes for all New Zealanders.

Contract extension

We acknowledge the uncertainty the expiring contract causes for health providers and can now confirm we will be extending the current Urgent Care Clinic contract for 12 months. This ensures continuity of services while we work with Health New Zealand on the new model of care.

We will be in touch with further details early next year.

Thank you

We are grateful to the members of the Expert Advisory Group who generously provided their time, expertise and insights for this review,  and to the kiritaki and whānau who shared their experiences with our research team.

Thank you for your patience while we completed this review. 

Any questions relating to the primary acute care review can be sent to via email:

Email primarycare@acc.co.nz