By Staff Reporter - Wanganui ChronicleFormer Associate Health Minister Dame Tariana Turia questions whether we should pay GPs to gather smoking data. At a meeting of the Whanganui District Health Board it was acknowledged that general practitioners received funding from the DHB to supply information about their patients' smoking habits. Dame Tariana queried why funding should go towards general practitioners for simply asking patients if they smoke. "How on earth can you say you are contributing to smoking cessation when all you do is ask, 'Do you smoke?'" But hospital chief executive Julie Patterson said figures showed that when GPs engaged with their patients about their smoking behaviour this increased their likelihood of quitting.

Source: New Zealand Herald March 26, 2017 21:45 UTC