Budget 2025: New urgent care services for Wairoa and major New Zealand centres

Christopher Luxon (right) and Simeon Brown announce $164 million for new 24/7 urgent care services. Photo / Dean Purcell

Access to urgent and after-hours healthcare is being expanded across the country, including in Wairoa, as part of Budget 2025 to deliver faster, more accessible urgent care closer to home, Napier MP Katie Nimon says.

The news is part of a pre-Budget announcement on a blitz of investment in urgent care across the country.

Speaking from Botany this afternoon, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Health Minister Simeon Brown detailed new 24/7 urgent care services in Counties Manukau, Tauranga, Whangārei, Palmerston North and Dunedin, and new daytime urgent care services in Lower Hutt, Invercargill and Timaru – among other investments.

“Strengthening urgent and after-hours care is central to our plan to ensure everyone can get the care they need, when they need it,” Nimon said in a statement.

“Budget 2025 invests $164 million over four years to expand urgent and after-hours services across the country – including extended services in Wairoa to help more people access care without long waits or travel."

Napier MP Katie Nimon.

As part of the investment, an extended after-hours service had been identified for Wairoa.

“The new and improved services will be introduced over the next two years, alongside continued support for existing providers and targeted improvements to rural access.

“Today’s announcement builds on the Government’s recent decision to invest in an enhanced overnight urgent care service for the Napier community, which means the people of Napier can get faster care closer to home,” Nimon said.

Brown said the funding was in addition to the last Budget’s cost-pressure uplift. Then, the Government had announced it would be increasing the health budget with a cumulative $16.68 billion over the next three Budgets.

Additional pieces of that spend are dropped into the health system each Budget, so while the funding is technically new this year, the public was told it was coming last year.

This Budget invests $164m over the four-year forecast period into urgent and after-hours care nationwide.

Associate Health Minister Matt Doocey said the investments would improve healthcare for people living in rural and remote communities.

“Access to healthcare is one of the biggest concerns for people living in rural and remote communities.”

Where the investment will go:

Key Budget 2025 initiatives for the Central region include:

• A new 24/7 urgent care service identified for Palmerston North by mid-2027.
• A new daytime urgent care service identified for Lower Hutt, building on the existing after-hours service in late 2025.
• Maintaining all existing urgent and after-hours healthcare services in the region, with capability to extend hours in central Wellington.  
• Extended after-hour services identified for Dannevirke, Masterton, Levin and Wairoa.
• Improved services for rural and remote communities, including better access to diagnostics, urgent medicines and 24/7 on-call clinical support.