Data and sources
Data version nz-public-2026-10-15.5, built 2026-10-15T05:39:31Z. Results are ranked by how directly the doctor’s own listing matches the need, not by quality or outcomes. No ratings, reviews or rankings are used. New Zealand honours, academic titles, paper counts and years as a specialist are shown as facts; only years as a specialist can change the order, and only when the agent asks for experienced doctors first.
Sources
- Healthpoint (healthpoint.co.nz): doctor listings, service pages and general practice pages
- Medical Council of New Zealand: public register of doctors (registration and specialist-scope dates)
- New Zealand honours lists, as reproduced on Wikipedia
- University of Auckland public staff profiles (academic title and appointments)
- Europe PMC: count of papers with a New Zealand affiliation
- Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora: waiting list data (CC BY 4.0)
- Private hospital websites (used to match searches; only links to the doctor's page are shown)
- Healthpoint listings and service pages were read on 2026-10-13 to 2026-10-15 (UTC).
- Medical Council of New Zealand register entries were read on 2026-10-13 to 2026-10-15 (UTC).
- New Zealand honours lists (as reproduced on Wikipedia, with the official list named) were read on 2026-10-14 (UTC).
- University of Auckland public staff profiles were read on 2026-10-14 (UTC).
- Europe PMC paper counts were read on 2026-10-14 (UTC).
- Health NZ waiting lists: Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora, waitlist detailed data extract Q4 2025/26 (CC BY 4.0); latest month 2026-06-30.
Every doctor’s evidence links to the pages it came from and gives the read dates. Ask about_database (HTTP: GET /api/v1/about) for the same list.
Coverage
| What | Doctors |
|---|---|
| All doctors in the database | 25,979 |
| Practising (every practising doctor on the Medical Council register) | 20,990 |
| Listed on Healthpoint (GPs named on their practice’s page, private specialists, and public-hospital doctors named on Health NZ service pages); 107 of these give no address, phone or city | 7,752 |
| Only on the Medical Council register: name, specialty and dates, no clinic details | 18,227 |
Of those, practising doctors with a specialist scope other than general practice: searches by specialty include them; searches by need include them only when the need names their specialty or is a symptom that specialty usually sees (4,824 with the date they became a specialist) | 5,056 |
Of those, practising doctors whose only scopes are General Practice, Urgent Care or Rural Hospital Medicine, included only when specialty is one of these | 1,441 |
| Listing a private service | 2,396 |
| Named on a public (Health NZ) service | 1,900 |
| Listing their own focus areas or special interests | 1,233 |
| With a clinic phone number | 7,481 |
| Matched to a Medical Council register entry | 25,566 |
| Own page or a service page saying Southern Cross Affiliated Provider | 1,252 |
| With the date they became a specialist in New Zealand | 14,052 |
| With a New Zealand honour | 113 |
| With a University of Auckland academic title | 118 |
| With a count of papers with a New Zealand affiliation | 2,733 |
General practices: 1,020, of which 561 say they are taking new enrolments; and 66 urgent care or after-hours clinics.
Public waiting lists: 20 Health NZ districts and 39 specialties.
Who is covered. New Zealand had 21,097 practising doctors at 30 June 2026 (Medical Council of New Zealand, The New Zealand Medical Workforce in 2026, tables 1 and 16). We read the Medical Council’s public register in full, so every doctor on it is in the database (20,990 practising when we read it). 36% of New Zealand’s practising doctors have clinic details from Healthpoint (most of these listings give an address and a phone number; 107 give none of address, phone or city); the rest are on the register only, with no clinic or phone. Counting each specialist (vocational) scope, 40% of specialists other than GPs have clinic details.
Healthpoint lists private specialists who choose to be listed, so clinic details are most complete where private practice is common: plastic and reconstructive surgery 85%, ophthalmology 85%, orthopaedic surgery 81%, urology 77%, vascular surgery 74%. They are thinnest in musculoskeletal medicine 17%, palliative medicine 11%, psychiatry 6%, and for many public-hospital doctors. GPs have clinic details when their practice’s Healthpoint page names them (65% of doctors with a general practice, urgent care or rural hospital scope). To find a practice, use search_gp_practices. When a search returns few doctors, an agent should say so and also search the web.
A Healthpoint listing whose name we could not match to one register entry with confidence stays separate from the register. The same doctor can then appear twice: once with clinic details and once as a register-only entry. Both entries carry possibly_same_person_as, and an agent should not present them as two doctors.
What a doctor’s evidence can hold
From the doctor’s Healthpoint listing and the service pages it links to:
- Specialties, title and qualifications; the focus areas, special interests and subspecialties they list; further training; languages.
- Every private and public service: clinic addresses, phone numbers and websites; the procedures and conditions the service lists; fee categories and fee lines where given; ages seen; hours; how to get referred.
- Whether a service page or the doctor’s own page says Southern Cross Affiliated Provider or nib First Choice, or a service mentions ACC. This is what the clinic says; cover depends on the person’s policy and often needs prior approval.
From the Medical Council of New Zealand public register, when we could match the doctor:
- Practising status, scope of practice and vocational scope, conditions on practice, qualifications and practising certificate dates.
- When each vocational (specialist) scope was granted (and whether it is provisional, under supervision), the earliest registration date on the register entry and the year of the primary medical degree, as experience signals. Doctors trained overseas may have practised longer than this shows; a doctor who left New Zealand and registered again may show the later date.
- Matching is by name plus registration date or specialty. Name-only and uncertain matches are left out rather than guessed, so a missing register entry does not mean the doctor is unregistered: check the register.
Other seniority signals, each matched to a register entry by name and only kept when the match is unambiguous:
- New Zealand honours (for example ONZM or MNZM) for services to medicine or health, with the list (New Year or Birthday Honours, year) and citation. An honour is not matched to a doctor whose register entry shows a degree less than 15 years before it (likely another person with the same name). Taken from Wikipedia pages that reproduce the official lists; the evidence links to the page.
- University of Auckland academic title (Professor, Associate Professor, Senior Lecturer) and the hospital appointments the profile lists. Other universities are not covered yet.
- Papers: an approximate count of Europe PMC records with the doctor’s surname and first given name and a New Zealand affiliation, only when the doctor is matched to their register entry and no other doctor on the register has the same name. It includes letters and abstracts and may miss papers under another name.
General practices
From each practice’s Healthpoint page: whether it is taking new enrolments (and its own note on who), locations and phone numbers, the first fee table on the page (usually for enrolled patients), online booking, hours, languages and the GPs listed there. Mobile numbers, email and fax are not kept.
What an empty field means
An empty or missing field means the listing did not say, not “no”. A doctor without listed focus areas may still treat the condition; a service that does not mention Southern Cross may still be covered. Ask the clinic.
What is not here
- The doctor’s own profile text and private hospital website text are not reproduced. Their ordinary words are used to match searches; names of other people on those pages (practice staff, family) are left out of the search index. The evidence links to the pages.
- No fee amounts for most specialists (general practice fee tables are included), no procedure volumes, no outcomes, no private waiting times.
- No email addresses, fax or mobile numbers, photos or professional-society memberships.
- No patient records of any kind.
Corrections from doctors: Corrections and removal.