With the rapid spread of Omicron, general practices across Tāmaki Makaurau are being inundated with COVID response requirements as well as trying to keep up with the day-to-day care of their patients.

In response, leading healthcare provider, ProCare, has today announced the launch of ‘Mission Possible’ to support the general practices across its network.

Bindi Norwell, Chief Executive at ProCare says: “General practices are overwhelmed at the moment and are doing their absolute best to manage the onslaught of patient enquiries, to the point where some practices phone systems are shutting down with the sheer number of phone calls they are receiving.

“It has been amazing to see the mahi of health professionals to support their patients during the pandemic, but the health system is getting more and more stretched day by day,” she continues.

“Therefore, we’ve launched ‘Mission Possible’ which will entail leveraging any spare capacity we may have across the ProCare team to do what we can to support our practice teams with practical help such as delivering Rapid Antigen Tests, helping to remind patients their immunisations are due, recalling people for high-grade overdue smears or preventative or chronic condition management such as diabetes or cardiovascular checks.

“Our team will also be stepping in to help with some of the more routine aspects of practice life such as trouble shooting IT issues, helping to answer the phone or swabbing patients. But ultimately, it will be about providing support with whatever the practice needs,” she continues.

Initially the programme will run for a month or so, but the timing will be assessed as Omicron progresses.

“We are mindful that we still have a business to run and our day-to-day mahi still needs to be delivered; but should we not see cases start to ease in roughly four weeks’ time, then of course we’ll do everything we can to support our network and enable them to continue caring for their patients when they need them most.

“It is important that we try to continue to address wider health needs such as immunisations, long term conditions etc. as much as possible to help keep our population well in the midst of a pandemic,” points out Norwell.

“I’m so proud of our team and the co-ordinated approach they’re taking with this initiative, as ultimately this is about pulling together to help our practices, their patients and the wider community in a time of need,” concludes Norwell.

ENDS

For more information, please contact:

Dee Crooks, Director of Brand and Communications dee.crooks@procare.co.nz or 022 0310 380.