46558 (2025). Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall to the Minister of Health

46558 (2025). Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall to the Minister of Health: Further to the reply to Question 3021 (2024), what steps have officials taken to ensure a quality assurance process is in place to validate data from source to publication, including investigating unexpected patterns or variations in results when preparing reports on health targets?

Hon Simeon Brown: I am advised that, as part of our plan to bring back health targets following their removal in 2018, and to put patients first by ensuring all New Zealanders have access to timely, high-quality healthcare, thorough quality assurance processes are in place to validate health target data before each quarterly publication. These processes include internal data validity checks over National Collections to ensure the data meets file specifications.