30 Jul 2014

Green Cross Health looks to expand

8:07 am on 30 July 2014

The chair of Green Cross Health says the company is looking for opportunities to expand its primary healthcare business.

Peter Merton told the shareholders at its annual general meeting that the company's recently established community health services operation, which operates under the Total Care Health Services brand, is doing better than expected.

The company represents about 300 pharmacies throughout New Zealand, under the brands of Unichem and Life Pharmacy.

It also has an equity stake in 34 medical centres, operating under The Doctors brand.

Mr Merton said Green Cross Health was focused on increasing its medical and community health services business.

"The vision is to put the patient at the centre and to offer the payer, which generally in this country is the Government, an opportunity to fund patients differently and to get better health outcomes."

Mr Merton said to do that Green Cross Health needs to go into other areas of primary health care and not just focus on its pharmacy business.

He said the two that have been picked to start with are medical and community health care, which includes nursing and home care.