Health New Zealand says it's working to deliver new and improved urgent and after-hours services

EDs issued more than 130-thousand vouchers letting patients get treatment elsewhere, in recent years.

Figures released to Newstalk ZB show vouchers worth more than 13-million dollars were handed out between the start of 2021 and mid-this year.

Hospitals Planning, Funding and Outcomes Director, Rachel Haggerty, says the system helps reserve EDs for those needing hospital level care.

She says people can still stay and wait in ED - and people with vouchers who don't present to an urgent care clinic are sent a reminder