Health costs plan would hit standards, says board

By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter

The Auckland District Health Board has warned the Government of cuts in services and quality if it is held to a three-year plan to chop its deficit.

The Government wants all health boards out of deficit.

Auckland, which expects to make a $49 million loss this year, is expected to get out of the red by 2005-06.

To achieve this, board managers devised a four-part plan which is already under way with the move to a new hospital and includes slowly shedding up to 700 jobs. Board members accepted only parts one and two, rejecting three and four.

A draft of the board's statement of intent for this financial year, which is more than half-way through, sketches the four-part plan.

The draft, included in public-meeting papers this week, says the third part reflects the staff reductions needed to meet the expected extra cost of wage settlements that are higher than permitted.

"The fourth part requires a level of change to reach break-even within three years that the board believes will introduce unacceptable consequences in terms of service access and reduction in quality," it says.

"The board and management team believe that a longer timeframe for achieving break-even would resolve this issue."

Elsewhere, the document describes a longer, four-year plan to end deficits by 2006-07 and omits mention of the rejected parts three and four.

That plan reflected the final version of the document, board communications manager Megan Richards told the Herald. The earlier, draft, version of the statement of intent that had wrongly been published would have to be amended and a copy sent to the ministry.

She said parts three and four of the earlier money-saving plan would have been developed by board management and put before board members, who rejected them.

"It was presented as a statement of impact ... The final plan is to reach break-even by 2006-2007 and that has been accepted by the ministry."

"It's been a progression. All other district health boards would have done exactly the same thing."