133 Molesworth Street
PO Box 5013
Wellington 6140
New Zealand
T+64 4 496 2000
27 May 2020
Sue Yates
By email:
[FYI request #12807 email]
Ref:
H202003118
Dear Ms Yates
Response to your request for official information
Thank you for your request of 7 May 2020 under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act) for:
“Please provide information on the formal requirements for identifying lockdown
stress, and how it is proposed for doctors to acknowledge and manage this.”
General Practitioners (GPs), practice nurses and other health professionals are trained to talk
with people about stress and distress. The Ministry of Health (the Ministry) expects that these
health professionals are doing this as part of their usual practice during lockdown and
throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
There is no formal advice on how to do this in relation to lockdown, we expect them to use
their clinical skil s and knowledge to assess and help manage people’s distress. As such, I am
unable to provide you with any “formal requirements”, as the information requested is not held
by the Ministry and we have no grounds to be believe it is held by another agency subject to
the Act.
The Ministry has made a number of new resources available to help people manage their
mental health and wellbeing, both throughout lockdown and over the next few months. We are
working to ensure that GPs and other frontline health staff are aware of these resources so
that the people who need them are aware of them. These can be found at the following link:
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-
coronavirus/covid-19-health-advice-general-public/covid-19-mental-health-and-wellbeing-
resources
You have the right, under section 28 of the Act, to ask the Ombudsman to review any decisions
made in response to your request.
Please note that this response, with your personal details removed, may be published on the
Ministry website.
Yours sincerely
Robyn Shearer
Deputy Director General
Mental Health and Addiction
