Dr Grant Davidson – January 2026

Kia ora tātou

Welcome back to the start of a New Year. And what a start it has been for many of us!

I had hoped that most people would be able to take a well-earned break over the Christmas and New Year period to relax and have some downtime with friends and whānau. Well done for those who were able to prioritise some ‘me time’ over that period. I know for others in tourist hotspots, the pressures due to population surges will have meant more work rather than less. Thank you for your commitment to your communities and those visiting your areas.

Little did we know that 2026 was going to throw a few curveballs at us right from the start!

The first of these was the data breach at Manage My Health (MMH). This breach of a reported 120,000 clients’ personal data was made public on January 1st. Almost immediately the primary care sector were mobilised into a crisis response phase, with teams from the National Cyber Security Centre, a HNZ incident response team, a GPNZ response team and PHO/Primary Care representatives meeting daily to understand the issue and start mitigation/management responses. I would like to take the opportunity to thank those who accepted a leadership role during these times; and special mention to Maura and GPNZ who would have done nothing other than live and breathe the response to the incident for the first few weeks in the New Year. I joined the over-seventy primary care leaders who received a daily briefing from MMH and HNZ crisis responders during this period. A further ‘call-out’ to the PHOs and practices in Northland, whose practices and patients bore over 80% of the impact of the breach.

The Minister has called for an in-depth review of the background to this breach of patient privacy. I note that the Privacy Commissioner has also asked that an independent review occurs into MMH’s precautions around data security. Hauora Taiwhenua will wait for the outcomes of these reviews to be made public, but are very concerned about what appears to be a lack of security around sensitive patient data by third party software vendors, and HNZ’s policies around data security requirements to sanction those vendors being able to access and store that patient data.  This incident does nothing to provide confidence that other vendors are not equally susceptible to cyber-security weaknesses; nor those vendors having tested systems in place to provide timely and effective responses if a breach occurs to their systems.

I certainly feel for the practices affected by this breach – whether they had significant impacted patients or not. Many were left with having to deal with concerned patients, and patients no longer trusting the security of their portals to hold data and therefore manage their bookings, requests for prescriptions and other enquiries. The default was increased workload for practices and their reception teams. The downstream impact on this may well be major obstacles in implementing further IT/AI solutions to increase productivity in general practice in order to create more patient-centred time, and loss of willingness of patients to share their data in order to track health outcomes/targets over the coming period. I believe HNZ has a big job ahead to build trust in a post-COVID environment when many voices are already cautioning that people should not trust the Government and the traditional health system.

Just as this incident was starting to settle down, and move to a recovery phase, from the crisis response phase, the East Coast of New Zealand was subjected to another extreme weather event.

Northland, the Coromandel, Aotea/Great Barrier, and the East Cape have once again been hit hard by heavy rain, flooding, forest slash inundation, and slips/road closures. Very heartfelt condolences to families and communities impacted by the deaths in the landslides at Mt Maunganui and Papamoa. These are personal tragedies that are still unfolding as I write this message.

Speaking to practices impacted by this weather event, despite past learning from Cyclone Gabrielle, there is still further learning to be had about servicing communities, and resilience of health services, when transport links are lost and helicopters cannot fly. Where should ambulances be placed to maximise the ability to respond knowing the typical weaknesses in our roading network? What are the best vehicles for first response in these areas compared to urban-useful vehicles? How can we get medications to patients when they are cut-off from their doctor and pharmacist? Medsafe regulations appear to act as a barrier to distribution of medications by remote means such as drones across roading gaps unless a state of emergency has been declared.

Many of these issues about resilience and medical responses after major climate and other events, will be significant topics during the upcoming Rural WONCA / National Rural Health Conference in April. With meteorologists telling us that the only guarantee we have is that weather events are only going to become more varied and violent; then we have to increase our planning for worse-case situations.

And the other piece of news is that Election 2026 will occur on November 7th this year. We will be holding all parties to account for their plans for rural health in the lead-up to the election, and hopefully we can seek assurances from the two prospective coalitions about what would be committed to if they were to form a government. The first panel discussion about this will once-again be held at Rural WONCA in April. Be ready with your questions to the political representatives!

So, let us hope that the rest of 2026 is less turbulent than the first month. Remember that our team is here ready to help if we can – whether through locum or other support. We can’t always help directly, but we will listen and do our best to respond.

Ngā mihi nui

Grant