The Health Minister is making zero promises about increased funding for struggling GP clinics that are deep in debt.
But Dr Shane Reti said he understood their pain and was working on the problem.
A doctor at the Whangārei GP clinic originally set up by Dr Reti has revealed the practice is more than six figures in the red and is calling for urgent action to fix the broken system she believes put them in a hole.
Doctor Paula Mathieson, from Rata Family health, said the situation was critical and GPs were feeling panicked.
Other general practitioners have also told Checkpoint they were close to burn-out, working hundreds of unpaid hours, and appointment wait times had blown out to three weeks or longer.
Reti agreed there was a problem but would not give a time-line for a solution.
"I've said for a while that I felt the general practice was broken and I was saying that during the campaign and I remain of that view and we're working on how we can fix that," he said.
A pathway for implementing changes needed to be considered by Cabinet and discussions still needed to be had with officials, he said.
"So I think there's still some information to take on board, but I'm not interested in further reviews, I'm done with reviews."
Reti said he outlined a pathway forward in the last review in 2022 and now it was a matter of working out how to implement that.
He would not give a timeframe as to when those discussions with Cabinet might take place.
"I understand that there is reconfiguration of remuneration required for GPs in primary care."
GPs could expect that the government would take into account issues such as recruitment, retention and remuneration in general practice, he said.
"I understand that there are at least three parts of general practice requiring fixing and [that] along with my Cabinet colleagues we're looking at what we can do to remedy that."
Reti agreed that a three week wait time for a GP was too long and the government would be looking at how to reduce that.
"The message is we understand and that we agree a lot of the recommendations in the Sapere report are valid and that we'll look to see how we can progress towards implementation."
