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Improving The Performance Of Health Services

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Health targets are a set of national performance measures that are designed to improve the performance of key health services. There are six national health targets out of which Better Help for Smokers to Quit is one of the health target which is routinely delivered in both primary and secondary health care by simple and effective interventions such as encouraging smoking cessation, public education about the danger of smoking, changes in the public’s and the media’s attitudes toward smoking, and the availability of new and more effective treatments for tobacco dependence. The Better Help for Smokers to Quit health target is designed to ensure health professionals, especially doctors, nurses and midwifes , routinely screen for tobacco use and then to offer smokers to quit. This essay will discuss how and why the target are sets and whats is the funding and monitoring procedure to achieve those target set by the Government of New Zealand.

Smoking is the single largest cause of preventable death worldwide. It kills an estimated 5000 people in New Zealand every year and affects the quality of life for thousands more. The cost to the health system that can be directly attributed to smoking has been estimated to be at least $1.9 billion a year. There are about 650,000 smokers in New Zealand – and of those, 80 percent wish they had never started and about 65 percent have tried to quit in the past five years. (Ministry of Health, 2005). Smoking increases the risk of

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