Health board looks at job cuts to save $16m a year

1.00pm

More than 1400 management and administrative jobs are under scrutiny at Auckland District Health Board in a move to save millions of dollars.

The board has until 2006-2007 to cut costs and eliminate its deficit, thought to be about $49 million this year.

Auckland DHB chief executive Garry Smith said the board was spending more than the national average on management and administration and wanted to cut those costs first before it looked at cutting costs which related directly to patient care.

The bill for management and administrative salaries was $83 million a year, Mr Smith said.

He said the board was spending 13.8 per cent of its total revenue on management and administration when the national average was only 10.5 per cent.

"We are looking at around about $16 million that we are targeting to reduce our management and admin by," Mr Smith told National Radio today.

He said the exact number of jobs which would go under the review would not be known until early next month.

He said the board had already been talking with management, staff and unions about job cuts and once it had had feedback it would "move to the next stage of consulting with staff members who might be affected".

He said staff who were closer to the patients in operational and transactional roles were far more secure than some of the support roles.

With 8500 staff there was a huge demand in areas such as human resources and payroll staff, Mr Smith said.

"Our objective is to improve efficiency, reduce bureaucracy and make the environment for our clinicians as effective as we can."

Earlier this year the board warned the Government of cuts in services and quality if it was held to a three-year timeframe to chop its deficit. The board convinced the Government and the timeframe was extended by a year.

The Ministry of Health had told the board it wanted its deficit eliminated by 2005-2006.

- NZPA