New Zealand 2026 election: GP access, hospital waiting times and health funding

Policy snapshot: October 2026 · General election: 7 November 2026

The main divide in the election is between parties proposing to make healthcare more affordable and expand publicly funded services, and parties emphasising prevention, earlier treatment, medicines funding and making existing health resources go further.

Labour is proposing three free GP visits a year and a job guarantee for eligible New Zealand-trained graduate nurses. The Greens advocate free healthcare and a larger public system, while National is emphasising medicines, screening and prevention. ACT and NZ First have proposed changes to how primary care is delivered, and Opportunity has proposed a substantial long-term increase in health spending. Te Pāti Māori focuses on prevention and Māori-led healthcare. 2026 Election Policy SummariesPolicies for Party vote - NZ Election 2026Labour's 2026 Election Policies

One important distinction: making a GP appointment cheaper is not the same as making an appointment available sooner. Reducing hospital waiting lists also requires sufficient doctors, nurses, specialists, operating theatres and funding to deliver additional treatment.

1. What each party is proposing

Labour

Affordability, primary-care capacity and nurse recruitment

• GP access: Three free GP visits each year for every New Zealander through a proposed Medicard system. Labour also proposes up to 50 loans a year to help doctors buy into owner-operated practices.

• More appointments: A plan to free up more than 4.5 million GP appointments annually through phone triage, technology support and targeted funding.

• Hospital capacity: Clear the backlog of hospital repairs and invest in buildings and essential systems.

• Staffing: Guarantee eligible New Zealand-trained graduate nurses a health-system job from 2027, with roles of at least 0.8 full-time equivalent.

• Funding: Labour says its healthcare commitments will be funded by a targeted 28% capital gains tax on investment and commercial property, excluding the family home and several other asset categories. It also pledges to return the government accounts to surplus in 2028/29. Labour's 2026 Election PoliciesLabour's Cost of Living Plan2026 Election Policy Summaries

  Important timing: Labour's detailed policy pages specify July 2028 for the three free GP visits, despite the policy being promoted as an election commitment. Check the implementation date in the final policy details.

National

Prevention, medicines and earlier intervention

• GP access: Emphasises earlier care and preventive health measures rather than Labour's promise of three free GP visits.

• Hospital treatment: Proposes earlier diagnosis through expanded screening, including lowering the bowel screening age to 50, extending breast screening to age 74 by 2029, and introducing prostate and lung cancer screening pilots.

• Staffing: The party's current approach includes expanding healthcare training capacity and changing how services are delivered; the health-policy summary does not identify a comparable new nationwide hospital-staffing guarantee.

• Funding: Pledges an additional $604 million for Pharmac's medicines budget, funded by reducing foreign aid spending outside the Pacific. 2026 Election Policy SummariesPolicies for Party vote - NZ Election 2026

  National's published headline commitments in the sources reviewed do not set out a new quantified reduction in overall hospital waiting lists or a comprehensive new workforce funding package.

Green Party

Free care, public provision and workforce investment

• GP access: Wants free, accessible diagnosis and treatment, including a transition towards fully funded, publicly owned GP clinics and other health services.
• Waiting lists: Emphasises prevention and increasing the health workforce. Its published workforce proposals specifically include training and employing more mental-health professionals to eliminate therapy waiting lists.
• Staffing: Increase the number of people entering health professions, improve retention, support Māori health-professional training, and invest in fair pay, pay parity, reasonable workloads and better working conditions.
• Funding: A broader expansion of public healthcare rather than a narrowly targeted GP subsidy. The policy summary does not give a single quantified nationwide hospital waiting-list target or total cost for this package. 2026 Election Policy SummariesPolicies for Party vote - NZ Election 2026

ACT

More services through pharmacies and changes to health administration

• GP access: Proposes letting pharmacists treat everyday conditions, manage long-term conditions, order blood tests and adjust medicines within limits set by a patient's GP. The aim is to make more care available without requiring every issue to be handled by a doctor.
• Hospital waiting lists: Its published health priorities reviewed here focus more on medicines, service delivery and cancer care than on a new numerical target for reducing general hospital waits.
• Staffing: The approach includes using different healthcare professionals to deliver a wider range of services.
• Funding: Increase the share of the health budget spent on medicines by one percentage point annually, aiming to reach 12% in 2033, funded from existing baseline health spending. ACT also proposes consolidating health administration under a Ministry of Health and Wellbeing. 2026 Election Policy SummariesPolicies for Party vote - NZ Election 2026

New Zealand First

Prevention and greater professional autonomy

• GP access: Proposes health coaches in primary care and restoring professional autonomy in general practice.
• Waiting lists: Its published health programme stresses preventing illness and reducing barriers to earlier care rather than specifying a new national hospital waiting-list target.
• Staffing: Health coaches would add another type of support within primary care, although the reviewed summary does not specify a large new doctor or nurse recruitment target.
• Funding: Proposes preventive-health initiatives and changes to medicines regulation and access. The reviewed summary does not specify a comparable overall health-budget increase. 2026 Election Policy SummariesPolicies for Party vote - NZ Election 2026

The Opportunities Party (TOP)

A long-term funding commitment

• GP access: Increase the share of health funding directed to primary care, with earlier detection and treatment as a priority.
• Hospital waiting lists: Its approach is to strengthen the health system over time, rather than relying only on short-term waiting-list initiatives.
• Staffing: A long-term plan is intended to support a more sustainable health system, though the summary does not specify a new nationwide number of doctors or nurses.
• Funding: Proposes a cross-party, 10-year health plan that would raise health spending from a stated 7.4% of GDP to 9% of GDP and direct more funding to primary care. 2026 Election Policy SummariesPolicies for Party vote - NZ Election 2026

Te Pāti Māori

Prevention, whānau wellbeing and Māori-led services

• GP access: Focuses on making services accessible, culturally safe and accountable to Māori, supported by Māori-led health solutions.
• Waiting lists: Emphasises prevention and whānau wellbeing to reduce reliance on crisis-based care.
• Staffing: Its health proposals support Māori-led services and solutions, but the Resident Doctors' Association's summary records no specific workforce commitments in its response.
• Funding: The published summary does not provide a directly comparable overall health-budget figure or a new numerical hospital waiting-list target. 2026 Election Policy Summaries2026 Election Policy Summaries

2. What do the proposals mean for waiting times?

The policies address three different problems, which are worth separating.

Issue	Main approaches in the election
Getting a GP appointment	Labour's extra appointment capacity and free visits; ACT's expanded pharmacy services; NZ First's health coaches; TOP's increased primary-care funding.
Getting hospital treatment sooner	Greens' workforce investment and public-service expansion; Labour's hospital repairs; National's earlier diagnosis and screening measures.
Having enough staff	Labour's graduate-nurse job guarantee; Greens' recruitment, retention and employment-condition proposals; other parties' training, prevention or alternative-service-delivery approaches.
Paying for the changes	Labour's proposed property capital gains tax; National's reprioritisation of foreign aid for medicines; ACT's use of existing health funding; TOP's proposed higher long-term health spending.

2026 Election Policy SummariesLabour's 2026 Election Policies2026 Election Policy Summaries2026 Election Policy Summaries

What is the current GP access target?

The government introduced a primary-care health target on 1 July 2026: more than 80% of people should be able to access a general-practice appointment within one week by 2030. The first national results were scheduled for publication in late 2026. Primary care health target

That provides a useful benchmark for judging the parties' plans. A promise to make visits free addresses affordability, while the existing target measures how quickly people can get an appointment.

For hospital waiting times, the key questions are whether a party commits to measurable reductions in specialist appointment and planned-treatment waits, and whether it will fund the staff and capacity needed to deliver them. The party summaries reviewed here do not provide directly comparable new numerical targets for reducing overall hospital waiting lists.

3. What should voters look for on staffing and funding?

Three details help distinguish the proposals:

• Recruitment versus retention: Labour's graduate-nurse job guarantee addresses employment for new graduates. The Greens also explicitly address retention, pay and working conditions. Neither commitment alone establishes how quickly shortages across all hospital specialties would be resolved. 2026 Election Policy SummariesLabour's 2026 Election Policies
• New money versus redirected money: TOP's proposal would increase health spending as a share of GDP. National and ACT have specific commitments that redirect or reprioritise existing public funds. These are different funding approaches and should not be treated as equivalent increases in total health spending. 2026 Election Policy Summaries2026 Election Policy Summaries
• Announced policy versus delivered results: Appointment targets, workforce promises and budget announcements are commitments, not evidence that waits have already fallen. Implementation dates, staffing numbers and published results will matter.

Official and independent sources to compare

• New Zealand Resident Doctors' Association — 2026 election health and workforce policy comparison
• Policy.nz — Compare 2026 election health policies
• Ministry of Health — Primary-care health target
• Labour — 2026 election policies and funding details

Bottom line: The clearest differences are in how parties propose to improve access, recruit and retain health workers, and pay for additional care. Labour has specific commitments on GP costs, appointment capacity and graduate nurses; the Greens emphasise free public services and workforce conditions; National focuses on earlier care and medicines; ACT and NZ First propose alternative ways to deliver primary care; TOP proposes a higher long-term health-spending level; and Te Pāti Māori prioritises Māori-led, preventive care. Their ability to reduce actual waiting times will depend on implementation, available staff and the capacity funded under each plan.