By 1 November, Te Whatu Ora work had started or implementing 70 recommendations, and no work had been done on 28. Photo: 123RF
Only a handful of measures to cut hospital wait times have been completed over a year after work began on them.
A planned care taskforce made 101 recommendations to Te Whatu Ora last October to improve access to treatment and operations.
As of 1 November, three of the 101 had been completed, the agency said.
Another 70 had started on planning or implementation, and 28 had not been started on yet.
"It is important to note that the majority of the recommendations from the Planned Care Taskforce require continuous improvements and do not have an end completion time," group manager of planned care Duncan Bliss said in a statement.
"There will always be data and service improvements to be made."
The goal is that no patients - except in orthopaedics - on wait lists will, at the end of the year, have been waiting over a year for treatment; and the same for orthopaedics by the end of next June.
The taskforce listed 30 of the 101 recommendations as a first priority. The agency is gathering more information about those.
In a separate Official Information Act response, Te Whatu Ora said districts had cleared or had a treatment plan for patients who had been waiting longer than three years for treatment.
They were working on the same for those who had waited more than two years.
"The benefit of the health reforms has meant there is a much clearer picture of where challenges lie for particular regions and districts," it said.