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.
