History
thePHO began in mid-2025, with its development sponsored by the General Practice Owners Association (GenPro).
The idea grew from concerns raised by general practices about the way the existing PHO model was working for practices and their communities. These included concerns about transparency, the flow of funding to frontline care, increasing complexity and bureaucracy, and whether practices had enough influence over decisions affecting their patients and communities.
Those concerns helped shape a different approach.
thePHO was designed around a simple principle: a PHO should strengthen general practice, not compete with it. Funding and decision-making should be transparent, practices should have greater flexibility to respond to their populations, and support should reflect the needs of individual practices and communities.
In December 2025, thePHO received conditional approval from Health New Zealand to become a Primary Health Organisation. Final approval followed in April 2026, ahead of the first practices joining thePHO on 1 July 2026.
Today, thePHO works with general practices across Aotearoa New Zealand, but the principles behind its establishment remain important: transparency, trust, strong relationships with practices, and keeping general practice at the centre of what we do.