DHB chief: Labtests lied to us

Labtests has rejected the allegations made against them by Counties Manukau DHB chief Gregor Coster. Photo / Greg Bowker

Labtests has been accused of lying to Auckland's district health boards over its quality and safety systems.

The allegation was made last night at a meeting called by GPs upset at problems with Auckland's new community laboratory service.

Counties Manukau DHB chairman Professor Gregor Coster apologised to the meeting over what he said was Labtests' continuing underperformance although he added that the service had improved.

"They led us to believe they had a quality and safety system in place from the outset.

"It proved not to be the case. Frankly they lied to us."

Labtests, which was not invited to the meeting, said later: "Labtests steadfastly refutes Mr Coster's allegations. At all times the DHBs had full and detailed oversight of Labtests' operations."

It also suggested attendance at the meeting was small when measured against the more than 4800 doctors and other clinicians it serves.

Professor Coster's allegation gives a new public insight into why the health boards sent in their own quality and safety team five weeks after Labtests began taking over the community laboratory contract.

Later he sought to moderate his comments, because "I'm conscious that the media is present".

"I feel we were misled," he said.

The meeting, organised by GPs Ian Rapson, Carmel Built and Gerald Young, attracted about 60 doctors to Auckland Girls' Grammar School last night.

The doctors passed a resolution no confidence in Labtests, 59 votes in favour and one against,. But Dr Built said she had a further 97 proxy votes - 80 of no confidence, 13 expressing confidence and four of limited confidence.

Dr David Jansen, who voted against the resolution and spoke in support of Labtests, claimed he had 300 proxy votes, but Dr Built rejected the claim.

Doctors recounted problems including near-misses for their patients, alleged misdiagnosis, slow turn-around times for results, unusual results, a flood of unwanted faxes, difficulty getting to speak to a pathologist, and a pathologist not seeming to understand his role of advising a GP.

Reflecting the mood of the meeting, Dr Tony Hay, of the Mt Eden Medical Centre, called for the health boards to go further than the 10 per cent of the contract they had returned to the previous provider, Diagnostic Medlab.

"I would have thought there were grounds to scrub the contract and go back to where we were."

Auckland's largest GP group, ProCare Health, said in a letter to the health boards that Labtests was continuing to fall well short of its promise it would match the DML service.

ProCare wants an urgent, independent review.

Labtests said the letter contradicted ProCare's recent statement to it that a "large and growing number of GPs" were satisfied with Labtests.