Whitireia Faculty of Health Dean Dr Kathryn Holloway has been appointed to the Expert Advisory Group assisting the Ministry of Health in the development of a draft refresh of the New Zealand Health Strategy.
The New Zealand Health Strategy provides the Ministry of Health with a strategic operational framework, effectively setting the parameters for the health system.
The current strategy was released in 2000, however much has changed in the health sector in the intervening fifteen year period, including increasing pressures like the growing ageing population and rapid developments in the technologies used to deliver health services.
Dr Holloway was one of five appointees to the advisory group, which includes a mixture of health academics, senior clinicians, an economist and a digital technology expert. The group will provide expert advice to a Ministry of Health team that is currently holding intensive stakeholder meetings on the strategy across New Zealand.
“I’m honoured to have been chosen,” said Dr Holloway. “Much has changed since 2000 so the strategy refresh is timely. The system is not broken but there is certainly a need to shift to suit the changing context.”
Based on her observations during the stakeholder meetings, she said there is a real passion and commitment across the country in regards to improving the health of New Zealanders.
Dr Holloway brings to the group previous experience in workforce modelling and planning for the Ministry of Health, and has an extensive research background in nursing education and workforce planning. She believes her involvement will help provide a view of how the nursing workforce should develop in order to meet health sector needs going forward.
Dr Holloway worked as a nurse in New Zealand, Australia and the UK before moving into nursing education in 1992. She joined Whitireia in 1996 and has been instrumental in the development of the Faculty of Health. She is co-chair of the board and fellow of the College of Nurses Aotearoa and is the national chair of Nursing Education in the Tertiary Sector Aotearoa NZ (NETS).
