Our Board and Management Team.
All members of the Association are able to stand for election to the GenPro Board, via a fully transparent and democratic annual process which requires that a minimum of two Board Director positions are openly contested each year.
New or re-elected Board Directors are confirmed at each AGM. The new Board then confirms the Association’s strategic workplan for the coming year.
Our Team:
I believe that sustainable, responsive and high quality General Practice and Urgent Care services are essential for the improved health and care of all New Zealanders. They are also essential for the sustainability of the health system as a whole. Without strong General Practice, the District Health Board funded hospitals and specialist health services across New Zealand would not be able to manage the levels of ill-health, patient expectations and demand which would arrive at their doors.
Successive years of increased demand, expectations, regulation and compliance have significantly increased the running costs of General Practice – and I don’t believe that those demands have come with a commensurate increase in funding or support.
I invite you to join us and help ensure we can continue to provide vital first-contact, primary care services for generations to come.
Dr Tim Malloy studied at the University of Auckland, originally training in paediatrics before moving into rural general practice.
From his base in Wellsford, he and his colleagues have successfully developed a virtual multi-disciplinary integrated family health service, which provides high-quality primary care to the local community – which contains many low income and high-needs patients.
Dr Malloy has been involved in practice leadership since the early 1990s through his involvement with the New Zealand Rural General Practice Network and was actively engaged with the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners for many years, including being elected President in 2012 and again in 2016.
In the 2021 New Year Honours, Dr Malloy was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to health.
Our business viability has been steadily and continuously eroded through multiple channels including under-funded annual inflation, increased compliance and regulation costs, transfer of services from secondary care without appropriate funding and, the slow removal of our ability to recover costs through patient co-payments.
Additionally now we face the loss of an underfunded but vital primary care nursing workforce from General Practice due to the significant pay-differential that has resulted from the most recent DHB nursing MECA settlement. This cannot continue if we are to ensure the future provision of essential first contact services for our local communities.
Dr Chambers was born in England and came to New Zealand at a very young age. He was raised in Christchurch by a GP father and a health activist mother.
Dr Chambers studied medicine at Otago University and has been a GP in Christchurch since 1990. He also has a degree in Law from Canterbury. He is a part owner of Riccarton Clinic – a practice with approximately 17,000 patients which also provides Urgent Care services.
Dr Chambers became involved in PHO affairs in the early 2000s and is currently Chair of Christchurch PHO. He was previously also Chair of the national collaborative organisation, Primary Health Alliance. It is through the latter organisation that Dr Chambers was appointed a PSAAP representative for PHOs and over the last few years in this role became deeply disillusioned with the historic PSAAP representation for General Practice owners - a subject on which he has been well quoted by NZ Doctor magazine and elsewhere.
He has been a keen supporter of the establishment of GenPro to try to change that historic representation and to support sustainable and viable General Practice.
His interests are his family as well as conservation - the land, rivers and bush.
Philip was born in the UK and qualified as an Accountant before joining the National Health Service and becoming a Director of Finance on the Board of successive Primary Care Trusts.
He was seconded to support national negotiations covering primary care contracting, including the GP contract, and was subsequently jointly appointed by the British Medical Association and the UK Departments of Health to Chair the Review of the Global Sum/Carr-Hill weighted capitation formula covering almost £10 billion of annual General Practice funding.
Following his move to New Zealand as Chief Executive of Health Hawke’s Bay PHO, he became Chief Executive of the Primary Health Alliance for the subsequent 8 years – a role through which he attended PSAAP as a PHO appointed representative.
As well as maintaining his Accountancy registration, Philip is a registered PRINCE2 Project Management Practitioner and a Harvard Law School trained negotiator.
Heather is a highly competent project/programme professional and analyst who has worked across both the private and public sectors, for both big and small organisations. She likes to put her skills towards implementing and improving, especially when it comes to people, systems and processes, with experience across office management, finance, procurement, HR, health and safety, risk management, reporting and training delivery.
Some of Heather's projects over the years have included establishing all administration systems for a growing PR and Publicity company, setting up the Secretariat for the Executive Leadership Team of the Ministry of Health, and developing a food tour company in Wellington to Gold Qualmark status and a preferred partner of both WellingtonNZ and Tourism NZ.
A previous role as a Police Welfare Officer supporting 1500+ staff and families has developed her counselling, rehabilitation, coaching and support skills, which also prove invaluable in many settings.
Heather is a quick and efficient worker, and enjoys being part of a team with a goal and a mission. Away from the office she has an interest in food, health, fitness and nutrition. She is also a recreational road motorcyclist.
Raewyn is a qualified accountant with significant experience in financial management across health and local government.
More to follow.
I thrive on supporting others and building positive working relationships. I am customer service driven.
My key strengths lie in business systems and processes, with extensive experience in EA/PA roles, Office Management, Event Coordination, Finance and HR. I love working as part of a team, and my previous experience has enabled me to build an extensive range of skills across a diverse range of industries.
I look forward to working with and supporting the GenPro Team, Board and Members.
I wish to pursue my interest in ensuring the viable future business case for General Practice in New Zealand. As a GP in Northland I am acutely aware of the issues created by funding inequities and the lack of adequate funding over many years.
As a Northland GP I am also aware that we are probably about to be offered a salaried business model. This is something I feel GenPro will have a pivotal role in shaping and will require ‘local input’.
Dr Geoff Cunningham is a GP and partner/co-owner of Bush Road Medical Centre in Whangarei and a director of Whangarei Doctors Limited.
Stephanie is an owner of St Heliers Medical in Auckland where she has practiced for over 18 years. Stephanie is also the Clinical Director of the Medical Division of Green Cross Health, this role enables her to bring strong and real insights to the Genpro board from Practices around New Zealand. She is married with three school aged girls and loves exercise and the outdoors.
Dr Taylor was elected to the GenPro Board in October 2022 and says "I understand the pressures General Practice is currently under and I feel strongly that we need to fight for the sustainability of our profession. We all know how rewarding our job can be and we now need to ensure that general practice becomes enjoyable again. I hope to help create a sustainable workforce and improve our funding models and I believe that GenPro is best placed to influence these changes".
Dr Mary English is a GP and owner of Kelburn GPs in Wellington. She is also the Chair of the Wellington Accident and Urgent Medical Centre.
Dr English was elected to the GenPro Board in October 2022. More to follow.
After graduating with an associate degree in Architecture, I worked for Sir Peter Blake at Team New Zealand in their successful 1995 America’s Cup challenge as a draftsman and sailor. I then moved to San Diego for six years to design and sail America’s Cup yachts for Dennis Conner.
In 2004 I moved back to New Zealand to study medicine. During my training I worked as a Paramedic with St John and later joined the GP training program. In 2012 I moved to Christchurch and became involved with BetterHealth which is a General Practice ownership company.
I am a director and shareholder growing my leadership, governance and business knowledge. I have completed the Institute of Director foundation courses. Currently I am a director and shareholder of Amberley Medical Centre and I work as a GP covering the afterhours roster and PRIME. I also work at Linwood Medical Centre as a GP where I lead the clinical business development team, and I perform vasectomies, dermatoscopy and minor surgery at Moorhouse Medical Centre.
I am General Manager of Green Cross Health Medical, which is one of NZ’s largest primary care providers with 42 GP and Urgent Care clinics across the country. I have a background in clinical medicine (Graduate of Auckland Medical School) and business strategy and leadership.
I work closely with clinical and management staff to ensure our businesses and organisation is running as effectively as it can to deliver high quality and accessible care to hundreds of thousands of kiwis.
Being closely involved in co-ownership with a number of GP partners, I see the need for general practice to remain sustainable from a business perspective in order to attract the ongoing investment required to maintain a world class health service.
I think GenPro, as the genuine and unencumbered voice of GP and urgent care business owners, is uniquely positioned to drive the best outcomes for providers.
I have been in general practice for 32 years. I was involved in the Upton health reforms of the early 1990’s. I was the first Medical Executive for ProCare and as such responsible for assisting in its initial development; signing up members, developing systems for organised general practice to work effectively, negotiating the initial contracts with RHAs.
I left ProCare to develop CityMed, the largest general practice in the Auckland CBD. I envisioned that IPAs should become commercial entities in partnership with general practice to help development of robust general practice and IPAs would not be beholden to government funding for their survival and direction.
The evolution of the IPAs into PHOs and changes to the funding model has left general practice without a direct voice and impotent in negotiations. Negotiations for funding at Government level and even with our own PHOs.
Dr Gerald Young is a GP and director at Whitecross CityMed (Part of the Tamaki Health Group).
What I bring to GenPro is tenacity. I will work steadily and persistently at issues I genuinely believe require solving. This is what lead to me taking an ombudsman complaint against the Ministry of Justice for non-payment of Coroners Reports. This was an eighteen- month process and with the foundational and ongoing work done by RNZCGP and GenPro has allowed significant progress to be achieved with an agreement by the Ministry of Justice to implement a process towards payment for medical reports to the Coroner.
My core passions are clinical work and my family. I regard General Practice as the foundation for a functional health care delivery system and love the broad clinical scope as well as ongoing continuous medical education. I have two children age 10 and 7, live in a rural environment and whakapapa to Kai Tahu, Kati Mamoe, Wai Taha southern iwi.
I joined the RNZCGP training program in 2017 after having worked as an Obstetric and Gynaecology registrar in Whangarei, Auckland City and Dunedin hospitals from 2008. I completed my first year as a house surgeon at Taranaki Base Hospital. I worked in sexual assault and assessment treatment services while working as a Dunedin Obstetric and Gynaecology registrar. I have a broad range of experiences to draw from and are naturally drawn to forming big picture perspectives as well as a keen eye for operational details that are crucial to creating and maintaining functional systems.
I look forward to working with GenPro on the solvable issues of creating sustainable services and funding models. I am really pleased to have the chance to be involved in an Association that recognises the importance of sustainable, viable and high-quality general practice.
Dr Deborah Johnstone is a contracted GP at Gore Medical Centre in Southland.
Of Ngati Porou descent, Ms Te Kira has worked in the health sector since 2005 and is passionate about reducing inequalities in health care and working with very high needs and Māori populations.
Ms Te Kira brings considerable understanding of the primary care policy and contracting landscape to the GenPro Board. She currently also holds the position of Executive Chair for the Practice Managers and Administrators Association of New Zealand (PMAANZ) and is a member of ACC’s Advisory Group for Primary Health as well as the newly formed Primary and Community Advisory Group established to support the work of the [health reform] Transition Unit.
Ms Te Kira strongly supported Three Rivers Medical joining GenPro and is delighted to have been elected to the Board. She believes that GenPro is much needed by a sector which is faced with significant challenges including gaps in the funding model and having to provide services to our most vulnerable populations on the smell of an oily rag, which, she says, is just not acceptable.
Michelle Te Kira is General Manager of Three Rivers Medical in Gisborne - an owner-operated VLCA general practice with almost 20,000 patients of whom approximately half are Māori.