Fall in operations riles National

National has attacked falling numbers of operations despite the Government spending $3 billion extra on health since 1999.

Party health spokesman Paul Hutchison said Ministry of Health reports showed that in 1999-2000 there were 160,574 publicly funded acute and elective operations, but that had fallen to 157,754 in 2002-03.

"After all the money they have put into the system ... they should have done a helluva lot better."

He also accused Labour of removing thousands of patients from waiting lists and sending them back to their general practitioners.

He cited a recent media report that 2000 patients were being removed from the Counties-Manukau surgical waiting list and being sent back to their GPs. And in 2003, 25,000 patients around the country were removed from waiting lists and sent back to their GPs.

But Health Minister Annette King said in Parliament yesterday that the figures for the number of operations in 2002-03 were incomplete and failed to count procedures in the mobile surgical bus or publicly funded at private hospitals.

In addition, recent developments in processes and technology meant some procedures that used to be done in public hospital day-patient settings were now being delivered in outpatient facilities.

"As people receiving outpatient procedures are not formally admitted, they are now no longer counted as discharges. This shift amounts to thousands of procedures."

But Dr Hutchison said later that Ms King's points about the figures had limited validity.

"It does not detract from the fact that there are major productivity problems."

He cited a Treasury report last year which suggested public hospital productivity was declining despite the extra spending.

Spending at the 21 health boards' provider/governance arms was 7 per cent higher than in the previous financial year, but the volume of hospital inpatient treatment rose only about 2 per cent.

Surgery figures

1998-99 151,662
1999-00 160,574
2000-01 161,438
2001-02 157,795
2002-03 157,754