Health bureaucracy out of control, says Ryall

Tony Ryall

District health board bureaucrats have increased in number by 23 per cent since Helen Clark's Administration came to power and now cost taxpayers more than $500 million a year.

Government answers to National Party questions show an increase of 1786 managers and administrators since 1999 - and a cost rise of 35 per cent since 2001.

National's health spokesman Tony Ryall, who released the figures yesterday as part of a campaign trying to show the health system as inefficient under the Labour-led Government, said the bureaucracy was growing "out of control".

The figures were in addition to 1100 Ministry of Health staff.

Mr Ryall said they showed the bureaucracy was too big, "while far too many people are forced to wait an unfair amount of time for operations - if they get them at all".

"When you've got thousands of patients being culled from waiting lists, you don't need to be employing more and more managers and administrators."

Acting Health Minister Damien O'Connor said that because the increase in the number of health board bureaucrats, at 23 per cent, was less than the 77 per cent increase in health spending under Labour-led governments, efficiency had actually increased.

"The cost of doing the business of administering that money properly is less than 5 per cent of the total health budget. That is still very reasonable."

But Mr Ryall said this reasoning was a "nonsense argument", because much of the extra health spending, like the pay increase for district health board nurses, had increased health spending without providing extra services that required additional administration.

And increased spending on widened primary health care subsidies would require few extra staff.

"The standard here is what the Government said ... [that] there would be fewer bureaucrats and there are more."

Prime Minister Helen Clark said in 1999, when in opposition, that the health system had too many bureaucratic layers; Labour was looking for savings from the bureaucracy.

"Rebuilding a simple relationship between one central government health agency and the district health boards by removing the Health Funding Authority will free up tens of millions of dollars for high-priority health spending."

Figures on the public health payroll released by the Government last year showed that the greatest proportional increases in the preceding five years had been in the numbers of nurses and doctors.


GROWING BUREAUCRACY

* In 1999, district health boards employed 7883 full-time equivalent managers and administrators.

* 2005: 9669.

* 2000/01 management/administration personnel costs: $379.4 million.

* 2005/06: $513.7 million (forecast).

Source: Government answers to National