Dr Rebekah Doran – June 2026

Kia ora tātou

I hope you’ve all managed to enjoy some of the (mostly!) lovely winter weather. With Grant currently over in France mixing a family holiday with supporting our NZMedJobs team at the WONCA Conference, I’ve happily taken over his usual newsletter spot to share a few highlights from what’s been a pretty full and rewarding month.

Earlier this month, I had the privilege of speaking as a keynote at the New Zealand Medical Students’ Association conference in Auckland. It was a fantastic opportunity to connect with the next generation of clinicians and leaders, and to encourage them to consider a future in rural health. The passion and energy in the room was inspiring, and it was reassuring to see such strong interest in making a meaningful difference in our communities.

Another highlight this month was our annual Fieldays adventure, working alongside Mobile Health in the Hauora Taiwhenua Health and Wellbeing Hub at Mystery Creek. Marie, Robyn, and I tackled some very early (and very chilly!) starts but as always, it was well worth it.

Fieldays gave us a fantastic chance to connect directly with people from both rural and urban communities. Many were keen to share their own health experiences and challenges, and it was pretty eye-opening how many hadn’t connected with primary care in a while. It was a good reminder of just how important it is to keep championing proactive healthcare and access, especially in rural communities where getting care isn’t always straightforward.

We were also lucky to have an awesome group of students supporting us throughout the week, including RMIP students from Auckland (with support from Dr Dinesha Kumarawansa and Dr Alex McLeod), SORHA-supported medical students on placement at Waikato Hospital, and nursing students from the University of Waikato. They brought great energy to the Hub and did a brilliant job engaging with the public.

They also helped create a really fun and welcoming atmosphere, especially with our “lucky dip for your health” challenge, which sparked plenty of great conversations. There were even a few standout athletic moments, with students happily jumping in on the exercise challenges and keeping everyone entertained!

We also had the slightly daunting (and occasionally entertaining!) job of facilitating a political panel session with representatives from five political parties. With Grant at the helm, they were definitely put through their paces and asked to front up on their commitment to some key rural health issues. There was, as you might expect, a bit of enthusiastic toeing of party lines and the odd well-practised sidestep but encouragingly, there was still a good level of agreement on the big issues, and a shared sense of intent to work together to make progress.

On a more serious note, a significant development this month has been the conclusion of the PSAAP negotiations on future primary care funding. I know this has been a challenging and uncertain time for many of you, particularly general practice owners and their teams, as you’ve worked through what these changes might mean in practice.

After some refinement of the initial proposal and a fairly tight decision-making window, it’s encouraging to see agreement reached on a new funding formula – the first substantial update to the capitation model in over 20 years.

This marks a positive step forward, with increased investment in general practice and long-overdue recognition of the financial pressures many services are facing. It’s also great to see rurality now included in the funding calculations. That said, there’s still more to be done to ensure rural funding is applied in a way that is fair, sustainable, and truly reflects the realities of delivering care in our communities.

Looking ahead, we’ll continue to work with Health NZ on the rural funding issues, and advocate for further improvements, including the inclusion of ethnicity in the capitation formula as part of the 2028 review.

As always, thank you for everything you do across the rural health sector – your work truly makes a difference for our communities.

Ngā mihi

Becks