New Zealand Rehabilitation Association, Inc.

• Who funds rehabilitation in New Zealand?
• What does this website offer funders and policy makers of rehabilitation?
• Links of interest

Who funds rehabilitation in New Zealand?

According to a recent report from the Ministry of Health, New Zealand currently spends approximately 8.5% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health.  There are two main funders of rehabilitation services in New Zealand: the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC).  MOH is the government's largest funder of health and disability services, spending $8.5 billion dollars in 2003/2004 (or 67% of total GDP) on health services.  ACC is the second largest funder of public health services, spending $992 million on health services in 2003/2004 (7.8% of the total health expenditure at the time).  However, other government departments such as the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Defence, and the Ministry of Social Development also invest money, either directly or indirectly, in rehabilitation activities.

What does this website offer funders and policy makers of rehabilitation services?

NZRA membership and this website is open to all people involved in funding, researching, managing, and planning rehabilitation services in New Zealand.  This includes: policy analyst working in the Health and Disability National Services Directorate of MOH, ACC case managers, ACC lifetime planners, ACC programme managers, and researchers and evaluators from MOH, ACC and other government agencies with an interest in rehabilitation and disability services in New Zealand.

The columns in this website have been provided by some of the leaders in the rehabilitation and disability sector.  Columns include opinion peices; interviews with people in the rehabilitation sectors; reviews of recent research, textbooks, internet resources as well as other brick-a-brac.   The emphasis of these features is to promote discussion and debate of contemporary issues in rehabilitation today – to which you are invited to contribute. We believe that there is a growing need for greater communication between the different groups of people involved in rehabilitation: between funders, providers and recipients of rehabilitation services, between different health professional groups, and across different community groups.  We hope this website goes some way towards addressing this need. 

We encourage you to subscribe to our free newsletter and to make use of the ‘comments’ function at the bottom of our webpages to provide your own perspective on our featured columns.  We also welcome press releases regarding matters to do with rehabilitation in New Zealand.  Please email these to us at editor@rehabilitation.org.nz.

Employees of health funding agencies are also welcome to become financial members of the NZRA.  This only costs $25 per year and your support helps us to run our biennual conferences and keep this website going.  The NZRA is a small non-profit organisation, which relies on the contribution of its members to continue running and keep growing.

Links of Interest

• For a guide to how to find your way around our website click here.
• For other national and international links of interest click here.
• To learn more about the NZRA click here.
• To learn about our website partners and sponsors, and how we made this website click here.
• To become a member of the NZRA click here.