[3][4][5] His mother was a schoolteacher, while his father was a lieutenant colonel in the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment (Territorial Force) and a manager at Mitsubishi Motors in Porirua, and was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1974 New Year Honours.

[3] Bloomfield completed several years of clinical work and from 1996[10] specialised in public health medicine,[11] concentrating on non-communicable diseases.

[21][22][23] When Bloomfield played for an invitational Centurions side in their 2020 rugby match against the Parliamentary team, children took placards to the game to support him.

[27] In August 2021, Bloomfield apologised to the New Zealand Parliament's health select committee for providing them with incorrect information about a United Nations worker from Fiji who later tested positive for COVID-19.

[28] In early April 2022, Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes announced that Bloomfield would step down as Director-General of Health on 29 July 2022.

[31] In the 2023 New Year Honours, Bloomfield was appointed a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to public health.