KEY POINTS:
The Government has started sharpening its razor for health bureaucracy by appointing former Treasury secretary Murray Horn to head a new performance and expenditure taskforce.
Potentially facing the chop, unless their worth can be proven, are some of the 138 or more Health Ministry committees.
The ministry refused to list all its committees for Tony Ryall when he was in Opposition, but since he became the Minister of Health last month he had made a fresh request for the information.
"We now know," he said yesterday, "there are, according to the ministry, at least 138 ministry committees and 21 district health boards."
Dr Horn's ministerial group is the first taskforce to be set up, under National's governing deal with Act, to review state spending "in identified sectors".
Mr Ryall, in announcing the membership and terms of reference of the group, promised that money saved by acting on its recommendations would go back into public health services.
"I expect some existing programmes, committees and strategies will disappear so funds can be reinvested back into improving patient services that are under pressure, and supporting our frontline staff.
"This ministerial group is about improving frontline health services, not reducing the health budget."
Mr Ryall would not say if he had any particular committees in his sights, but he reiterated the Government was not in favour of major structural upheaval in health.
"It is not the Government's policy to amalgamate district health boards. We think there are significant gains to be made through greater co-operation and sharing of back-office functions."
The ministerial group's budget was not yet fixed, "but I expect it will be modest", he said.
The group's members include Dr Horn, a director of Telecom; director-general of health Stephen McKernan; Auckland GP Dr Tom Marshall, a former deputy chairman of the Medical Association; and a primary health organisation chairwoman, Sally Webb, who was on two of the last National Governments' health funding authorities.
It will only exist until it reports, by July 31, and is intended to contribute to National's policy of giving nurses and doctors more say in the running of the public health system.
Medical and nursing groups yesterday welcomed the prospect of their members having greater input.
