Response to Health Changes
Well almost the entire health sector seem to be united behind the changes announced by Tony Ryall. This degree of unanimity is very rare. In fact I think the last time it happened was in the early 90s when the Young Nats proposed selling off all 23 CHEs to the private sector (on the basis of there being a funder/provider split, and ownership of providers did not matter), and we got condemned by every health group and political party there was – including National’s own Minister and Under-Secretary 
Getting widespread support in favour, rather than against, what you are doing is harder but here is reaction yesterday:
NZMA:
The New Zealand Medical Association (NZMA) today welcomed the announcement by the Government of substantial changes to the health system.
“It makes great sense to rationalise the backroom services of the District Health Boards (DHBs) and to provide much greater coordination of national services and we support the decision to place the National Health Board within the Ministry of Health,” said NZMA Chair Dr Peter Foley.
NZNO:
The New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) supports announcements made today by the Minister of Health, Hon Tony Ryall, which will see greater collaboration in health across New Zealand’s 21 District Health Boards (DHBs).
“We are pleased that the Government and the Minister have taken heed of the submissions made in response to the Ministerial Review Group report ‘Meeting the Challenge’. We welcome any additional resources to workers at the front line of the health service,” said NZNO President Nano Tunnicliff.
“The changes signalled are a sensible continuation towards a more nationally integrated health service,” Tunnicliff said.
ASMS:
“We are chuffed that the government has listened to advice from us and others on the health proposed by the Ministerial Review Group (Horn Report),” said Mr Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, today.
“The Horn Report recommended creating a new bureaucracy, the National Health Board, as a separate, less accountable crown entity, in addition to the Ministry of Health. This would have involved major restructuring, and risked increasing bureaucratic wastage and generating paralysis in decision-making. We supported the functions proposed for the National Health Board but not the recommended structure.”
“We have worked hard lobbying government not to go down this path. Instead we recommended that the functions be allocated to a specific enhanced unit within the Ministry of Health. This is exactly what Health Minister has announced today and we are delighted. It is a relatively novel experience of a government listening to us in such a specific way.
And even the Health Cuts Hurt lobby group:
“Health Cuts Hurt supports the principles behind the Government’s decisions about the public health system announced today but is concerned that the devil is in the so far undelivered detail,”
“How can you oppose more consolidation of the administrative functions like purchasing in bulk and more regional cooperation in service delivery along with returning savings from these things into more operations or hospital beds,” said Heather Carter.
Oh I am sure Labour can, if they try hard enough
Efficiency gains expected as a result of changes to the public health system announced by the Government today have been welcomed by the Health Funds Association (HFANZ).
Tony Ryall really is doing well with what is traditionally a very dangerous portfolio. If only, the same could be said across the entire Government!
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:39 am
The Press headlines is doctors welcome health cutback: http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/2987945/Doctors-welcome-health-cutback
I don’t think I’ve ever read that before.
Ele Ludemann
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:41 am
Sorry to be a bore but let’s wait and see if they can REALLY save $700 million over 4 years just by streamlining the timesheets & toilet rolls side of the operation. That is a sh!t load of money. Seems almost too good to be true…
But this leftie thinks it’s awesome that Ryall is focussing on cutting fat not core services!
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:50 am
PS: A leftie cheers the Nat gummint on a Right blog and still gets the thumbs down for it. Pathetic little haters. Time to log off the computer and grow up.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:52 am
If he can pull thye savings off, Ryall has just delivered a significant funding boost to the health sector.
I just hope it doesn’t get gobbled up by the Junior Doctors in more travel, free meals for the family, and the replacement of overtime with more expensive (but often the same person) locums.
Rorts are more common in the Health sector than in the Beehive.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:53 am
RRM, it may be one of your own that is trying to distance themselves from your peculiar outbreak of logic and commonsense. As we have seen before, oddballs like Trevor Mallard and sonic also lurk in these murky waters.
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:09 pm
The trouble with 22 IT systems (DHBs and the Ministry) isn’t just that you have to implement the same applications 22 times, but that it costs a fortune to integrate them all. I don’t think the government will have any trouble at all finding the savings.
However, I think it’d be nice if some or all of the shared services were based in the regions rather than Wellington. I’m all in favour of spreading a bit of government spending around the country, rather than concentrating even more of it in the capital.
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:11 pm
RRM – having been involved in several RFP’s for information systems in the health sector, I can say with some certainty that there is potential for significant savings in that area alone. Even given that different DHB’s will have purchased systems from different providers, there should be little difficulty in building interfaces to enable those systems to intercommunicate. And it makes no sense whatsoever for non-clinical services in Palmerston North and W(h)anganui (for example) to be duplicated when one organistaion could provide support services for both DHB’s at significantly less cost.
Ryall seems to be onto a winner here, and big ups to you for acknowledging that
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:29 pm
That’s pretty amazing. Bravo Tony Ryall!
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Shit eh? Just as well Dyson didn’t think of it. Cullen might have bought another train set.
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Paul Henry gave Ryall a bit of a battering this morning and with good reason, while I am glad that the Nat’s are getting stuck in to reducing he bureaucracy Henry did make the point that it should not take four to five years to get rid of 500 people.
Ryall also said (surprisingly so) that the bureaucracy had increased by 2500 people under Labour, immediately he was attacked by Henry for only attempting to reduce that same bureaucracy by 500 when it is clear that they should be reducing it by far more.
Still, it is a start and it is to be applauded, I would just like the numbers to be far higher and for them to be sacked far quicker.
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Adolf Fiinkensein (1211) Vote: Add rating 1 Subtract rating 0 Says:
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Shit eh? Just as well Dyson didn’t think of it. Cullen might have bought another train set.
nah… Cullen would have just paid even more for the same set…
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:23 pm
This was only childish post on this thread. Tedious hypocrit.
That is why the karma is by the name of the poster. The first thing you read is “RRM” then you click the little red button.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
^^^ Cause with Sonny Blount you’re debating personalities, not politics. Awesome.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:52 pm
“and we got condemned by every health group and political party there was – including National’s own Minister and Under-Secretary
”
Google “Labtests performance NZ” for a good example of the reason.
Handing some entrepreneur a monopoly = doin’ it wrong.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Early days yet but Tony is approaching this reform with skill, determination and finesse. I hope Nich Smith is watching carefully. That man could lose the ACC reforms through his obdurance.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Is it a good idea to centralise IT functions? Most doctors I know are 1 fingered typists who barely know how to send an email. Don’t think they are going to want to sit on a phone waiting for an IT specialist from Wellington or Bangalore or wherever when their computer crashes.
Payroll yes can be done from anywhere- no reason why it all has to be done in Wellington via another bureaucracy though.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Ithink he could have started by reducing the number of Boards and also by reducing the number of elected drones who add nothing to efficiency.
October 22nd, 2009 at 6:56 pm
A good start.
Next on the chopping block should be the bloated back-office tertiary education bureaucracy – 20-odd polytechnics each with their own CEO [sic], finance department, IT department, HR department, marketing [sic] department, curriculum development department, quality [sic] department, etc. etc.. The waste of money fostered by these make-work chair polishing jobsworths is incredible.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Another Wellington statutory board to give more jobs for the boys- just what we need!
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:08 am
The Boards will be removed of any real significance a bit like the way the Queen has been stripped of all executive authority and is just a figurehead. The Boards will be similar. Think about it, a significant number of staff in the Boards will be employed by the Ministry of Health in Wellington. One “cultural restraint officer” (I kid you not these people EXIST) based in Wellington. One cultural thingy person who goes around the maori patients asking them “is everything all right” – yup – a tick with a little stamp. There are heaps and heaps of these drones in hospitals.
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Imagine even the savings on taking 25,000 plus cellphones to market and the rate they could get and thats just one item. Let alone servers, software, WAN links.