UNCLASSIFIED
8 April 2024
Chrystal Hill
[FYI request #24942 email]
Tēnā koe Chrystal,
Your request for official information, reference: HNZ00033151
Thank you for your email on 28 November 2024, asking for the following which has been
considered under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act). Please see outlined below a
response to each part of your request.
Dates of Interest:
1/ For 2019: March 27, June 5, August 14, October 23 2/ For 2022: March 30, June 8,
August 17, October 26 3/ For 2023: March 29, June 7, August 16, October 25
Part 1: Staffing Data
For each of these dates, across each department in all districts:
1/ House Officers: Total number employed.
2/ Relieving House Officers: Number of relieving house officers.
3/ Registrars: Total number of registrars employed.
4/ Relieving Registrars: Number of relieving registrars.
5/ Vacant Positions: Details of vacancies.
Part 2: Leave and Cross-Cover Information On the same dates and for each department
across all districts:
1/ Cross Covers: Instances of staff covering for colleagues.
2/ Cross Cover Outside Regular Hours: Details of cross-covering shifts outside normal
hours.
3/ Additional Duties: Information about extra responsibilities.
4/ Leave Records: Counts of staff on sick leave, annual leave, bereavement leave, or other
types of leave.
Part 3: Staff Movements
For each quarter of the specified years:
1/ New Employees: Number of new employees joining.
2/ Resignations: Number of staff resignations.
3/ Transfers: Number of staff transfers within or between departments.
Please provide the requested information both as a direct reply to this email and
additionally as an attachment in an electronic format, such as PDF or Excel. This will
ensure clarity and ease of review.
Response
The RMO workforce undertakes a series of ‘runs’ during the training year which may involve
moving hospitals, localities or districts. As this workforce moves regularly, it can be challenging to
capture and reconcile data on this highly mobile workforce. The data provided in this response is
the best information that we have available, and while care has been taken to prepare this
material, we give no guarantee that it is free from errors or defects.
UNCLASSIFIED
To support the navigation of several sets of data contained in this response, the response has
been broken down by question and section below.
Tables 1-4 within Appendix 1 have been sourced from the Health Workforce Information
Programme (HWIP) database. HWIP data is reported quarterly; we have provided the relevant
quarters that contain the dates requested as we are unable to provide extracts for exact dates.
There are caveats regarding data provided, we have provided overarching caveats at the start of
Appendix 1 and added further notes where specific caveats are required for each table.
There are further sets of data in Appendices 2-5 which have been provided by the districts where
this is information not held at the central level. As there are differences in the amount and types of
information captured by Districts, we have provided responses in the format in which they were
received in order to provide the most accurate and complete information.
Part 1: Staffing Data
For each of these dates, across each department in all districts:
1/ House Officers: Total number employed.
Please refer to Table 1, Appendix 1.
2/ Relieving House Officers: Number of relieving house officers.
Please see;
Appendix 2 for Auckland District Data
Appendix 3 for Taranaki
Appendix 4 for Capital Coast
Appendix 5 for all other responses.
3/ Registrars: Total number of registrars employed.
Please refer to Table 1, Appendix 1.
4/ Relieving Registrars: Number of relieving registrars.
Refer to response 1.2
5/ Vacant Positions: Details of vacancies.
Please refer to Table 2, Appendix 1.
Part 2: Leave and Cross-Cover Information On the same dates and for each department
across all districts:
1/ Cross Covers: Instances of staff covering for colleagues.
2/ Cross Cover Outside Regular Hours: Details of cross-covering shifts outside normal
hours.
3/ Additional Duties: Information about extra responsibilities.
4/ Leave Records: Counts of staff on sick leave, annual leave, bereavement leave, or other
types of leave.
Due to the substantial collation and research that would be required to respond, we are refusing
Part 2 of your request under section 18(f) of The Official Information Act 1982. I have considered
whether changing or extending the timeframe for responding to your request would be appropriate,
however, any response would divert resources from the administrative and operational tasks of the
National and District Workforce Teams.
Part 3: Staff Movements
We have supplied new employees and resignation data as requested, however, it should be noted
that RMOs transferring between districts to undertake runs will show as both an entry and an exit
UNCLASSIFIED
as they leave one district to join another. Due to the anonymized nature of the HWIP data
collection, we are unable to identify and exclude movement between districts.
For each quarter of the specified years:
1/ New Employees: Number of new employees joining.
Please refer to Table 3, Appendix 1.
2/ Resignations: Number of staff resignations.
Please refer to Table 4, Appendix 1.
3/ Transfers: Number of staff transfers within or between departments.
We are unable to supply a response for question 3.3 as this data is not tracked at the national and
local level. This part of your request is therefore declined under section 18(e) of The Act as this
information does not exist.
How to get in touch
If you have any questions, you can contact us at
[Health New Zealand request email].
If you are not happy with this response, you have the right to make a complaint to the
Ombudsman. Information about how to do this is available at
https://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/ or by phoning 0800 802 602.
As this information may be of interest to other members of the public, Te Whatu Ora may
proactively release a copy of this response on our website. All requester data, including your name
and contact details, will be removed prior to release.
Nāku iti noa, nā
Andrew Slater
Chief People Officer
People and Communications
TeWhatuOra.govt.nz
PO Box 793, Wellington 6140
UNCLASSIFIED
Appendix 1: Health Workforce Information Programme (HWIP) data
Overarching caveats
The overarching caveats that relate to all the data provided are noted below, with further caveats provided for each table of data.
• Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora (Health NZ) District data was extracted from the HWIP database on 05 January 2024 and reflects people
employed by the 18 Health NZ Districts as at 20 September 2023.
• HWIP collects data from the 18 districts as at the end of each quarter, and the data as 20 September 2023 is the most current data available.
• Data excludes casuals, contractors, and people on parental leave or leave without pay.
• Employee Count is a distinct count based on Employee number. There is the potential for individuals to be counted more than once if they
hold roles with more than one district, or if they hold roles in more than one occupation group.
• All FTE values are contracted FTE (where FTE = 2086 hours per year)
• Key note: Resident Medical Officer vacancy numbers fluctuate these roles typically rotate within and between Districts during their training.
Disclaimer: While reasonable care has been taken to prepare this material, we give no guarantee that it is free from errors or defects. It is the best
available data.
Table 1. House Officers and Registrars: total number employed – broken down by their position
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
Position
March
June
Sep
Dec
March
June
Sep
Dec
March
June
Sep
Dec
March
June
Sep
Dec
March
June
Sep
House
Officers
1701
1592
1638
1753
1733
1705
1683
1709
1760
1734
1695
1651
1825
1754
1757
1741
1882
1792
1743
Registrars
2566
2568
2599
2708
2713
2736
2778
2664
2902
2876
2919
2879
2965
2941
3002
2937
3027
2907
2959
Rest of
RMO's
23
4
2
3
6
7
2
1
5
1
4
4
9
4
9
10
17
8
5
Total
4290
4164
4239
4464
4452
4448
4463
4374
4667
4611
4618
4534
4799
4699
4768
4688
4926
4707
4707
Notes:
• Resident Medical Officers count are those coded under the HWIP Resident Medical Officers (RMO) Occupation Group.
• Occupation Groups are based on the ANZSCO codes assigned to carious roles. In a small number of cases Health NZ adjusts the ANZSCO
from the originally submitted.
• House Officers and Registrars have been identified using the Common Chart of Accounts coding.
UNCLASSIFIED
Table 2. Vacant Positions: details of vacancies
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
Position
March
June
Sep
Dec
March
June
Sep
Dec
March
June
Sep
Dec
March
June
Sep
Dec
March
June
Sep
House
Officer
27.1
60.5
73.5
64.0
70.0
53.0
46.0
27.0
16.0
163.0
92.5
177.0
184.0
130.1
70.0
24.0
22.0
44.0
98.5
Registrar
94.5
148.6
165.3
168.5
117.1
157.0 261.0
94.0
39.0
282.5 157.2
226.6
216.0
286.4 242.2
49.0
47.0
159.4 180.6
Rest of
RMO's
2.0
34.9
19.5
14.0
13.0
2.0
37.6
25.5
29.6
91.8
85.1
276.6
115.4
109.3 125.0
53.8
28.5
82.0
19.0
Total
123.6
244.0
258.3
246.5
200.1
212.0 344.6 146.5
84.6
537.3 334.8 680.2
515.4
525.7 437.2 126.8
97.5
285.4 298.1
Notes:
• The definition of a vacancy for the purposes of the HWIP collection is as follows:
• An unfilled position that has funding allocated and will be actively recruited for within the next six months.
• It is a permanent position that is part of the FTE allocation (if applicable).
• Where a vacancy exists, it remains a vacancy when temporarily filled.
• Vacancy data is reported from the District recruitment/HR/Payroll/Financial systems and are the roles as at a point in time – for the extract that
is 30 September 2023
• Resident Medical Officer vacancy numbers fluctuate as their roles are typically managed differently as they rotate within and between Districts
during their training.
• Vacancy data for Q1, Q2 and Q3 2023 is not available from the Canterbury and West Coast District, as they are undertaking data quality
improvement processes.
• Vacancy data for Q3, Q4 2022 is not available from the Bay of Plenty
• Vacancy data for Q2, Q3, Q4 2022 is not available from Canterbury and West Coast District, as they are undertaking quality improvement
processes.
UNCLASSIFIED
Table 3. House Officers and Registrars: number of new employees joining – broken down by their position
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
Position
March
June
Sep
Dec
March
June
Sep
Dec
March
June
Sep
Dec
March
June
Sep
Dec
March
June
Sep
House Officers
278
298
325
843
307
305
285
200
709
262
387
296
892
276
401
255
881
234
345
Registrars
107
636
194
1042
148
259
468
115
1079
104
682
145
1192
117
705
175
1073
111
654
Rest of RMO's
1
3
0
1
2
2
1
0
2
0
0
0
3
1
1
1
2
0
1
Total
386
937
519
1886
457
566
754
315
1790
366
1069
441
2087
394
1107
431
1956
345
1000
Notes:
• Starters within this report are those employees whose reported employment start date was between 1 Jan 2019 to 30 September 2023.
• New starters will include people who have left one district and started work in another. Due to the anonymized nature of the HWIP data
collection, we are unable to identify and exclude movement between districts.
• It should be noted that with the RMO intake and training rotation dates in January/February, fluctuation will be seen in the starter and leaver
numbers in the March quarter.
UNCLASSIFIED
Table 4. Number of staff resignations – broken down by their positions
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
Position
March
June
Sep
Dec
March
June
Sep
Dec
March
June
Sep
Dec
March
June
Sep
Dec
March
June
Sep
House Officer
252
334
227
533
303
278
260
122
458
242
338
287
503
280
322
216
520
251
305
Registrars
95
663
141
1028
129
257
421
210
945
125
661
176
1162
155
669
171
1093
150
635
Rest of RMO's
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
1
4
0
0
0
2
0
0
0
2
0
0
Total
347
997
368
1561
433
535
682
333
1407
367
999
463
1667
435
991
387
1615
401
940
Notes:
• Leavers are those employees whose leaving date was between 01 Jan 2019 to 30 September 2023.
• Leavers count will include people who leave one district to work in another, but due to the anonymized nature of the HWIP data collection, we
are unable to identify and exclude movements between districts.
• Leavers includes both voluntary and involuntary leavers – involuntary leavers are those reported as leaving a district for reasons restructure,
redundancy, dismissal, death, or for health reasons.
• It should be noted that with the RMO intake and training rotation dates in January/February, fluctuation will be seen in the starter and leaver
numbers in the March quarter.
