Outcome 3 in Action - Health & Wellbeing - Health Passports

The Health and Disability Commissioner developed the Health Passport to help keep the consumer as the main focus of health services and ensure their rights are upheld.

The Health Passport is for anyone but it’s especially useful for people who communicate in different ways, disabled people and those who go to hospital a lot.

If someone chooses to have a Health Passport, they decide what information to put in it. This might be about communication or support needs. For example, someone might say they like to have a family member present when their treatment is explained.

Health Passports are good in emergencies when it can be hard to speak. In hospital, the patient keeps the Health Passport close to their bed and they can ask staff to read it.

The Health Passport is used all over New Zealand and can be used in any hospital. In Wellington, Hutt Valley and Wairarapa hospital staff have been focusing on how the Health Passport has been working since it was introduced in 2013.

Capital & Coast, Hutt Valley and Wairarapa District Health Boards are working with the Health and Disability Commissioner to revise and improve the Health Passport with input from clinicians and consumers. The revision is based on what people who have used it have said. This includes hospital staff who read what people have written.

These three District Health Boards are working together on many agreed actions to make sure disabled people have the best possible standards of health care.

Resources and Guidance to support the implementation of Outcome 3.

Download handout with Resources section. [PDF, 181 KB]