The National Kaitiaki Group (NKG) was established under and operates within the Health (Cervical Screening (Kaitiaki)) Regulations 1995. The group is accountable to the Minister of Health.
The National Kaitiaki Group's task is to consider applications for the release of Māori women's aggregate data from the National Cervical Screening Programme-Register (NCSP-Register).
The criteria used to approve applications are:
The group considers applications four times a year, usually in February, May, August and November. The dates for the next NKG quarterly meetings are as follows:
19 August 2008
18 November 2008
Applications for data are required at least two weeks prior to a meeting. Where important matters require consideration outside this schedule, ad-hoc meetings or teleconferences may be held with the prior approval from the NKG.
Please send all applications to the NKG's secretariat. The NKG secretariat's contact details are:
NKG Secretariat
Maori Health Directorate
Ministry of Health
PO Box 5013
Wellington
The timeframe for data release is approximately six to eight weeks (depending on the complexity of the request) following notification of the NCSP-Register staff of approved data releases. Very complex applications may also incur a cost which will be made clear to applicants prior to extraction of the approved data.
The following information may be easily extracted from the NCSP-Register:
1. The number of Maori women enrolled by:
2. Number of smears taken and received by the NCSP-Register (a woman may have more than one smear test).
3. Maori women's smear history at enrolment:
In releasing approved data, the NKG will ensure that such releases protect the confidentiality of Maori women on the NCSP-Register. Very small numbers that might identify individual women will be aggregated into bigger groupings.
Approved information will usually be released to applicants on hard copy (on paper). However, it is possible for data to be released in an excel spreadsheet format. Applicants requiring this form of response should provide a disk to NCSP-Register staff to assist this process.
Please contact the NKG Secretariat on NKG@moh.govt.nz for an application form or for further information