Former Health New Zealand Chair Rob Campbell on Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking Breakfast. Video / Newstalk ZB
Former Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora chair Rob Campbell is blaming the Ministry of Health for many of Health NZ’s problems, saying the ministry “presided over the cock-up that is our health system for a long time”.
Campbell told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking this morning that although the dramatic sacking of Health New Zealand’s board yesterday involved “a lot of politics”, there were undoubtedly problems with the public health agency.
He could not understand from the outside how the agency was overspending by $130 million per month.
”When someone blows a budget, there are a couple of possibilities. One is that they’ve been lax; the other is that budget was never right from the start,” Campbell said.
”I suspect that it’s a mix of both here. I suspect that the original budgeting and the appropriations that were made were never properly adequate... and therefore it’s been almost impossible to manage. And that comes back partly to the board, partly to management, but significantly also to the ministry.”
Hosking asked “why are we sitting here in July” with nothing done. Luxon laughed and said they only really took over in December.
“C’mon Mike... We took office at the end of November, we have had a series of escalations.”
Hosking said: “Tell you what mate, if I arrived to run the country in October and someone told me about a $130 million a month loss they would be sacked on the spot. You’ve had seven months to fix this place up. You’re too slow.”
Luxon laughed: “Give me a break, we are working at speed here.”
Professor Lester Levy was chair of the Health NZ board and has now been appointed as commissioner.
The health agency was formed in 2022 by the previous Labour Government, which merged the country’s 20 district health boards with the intention of creating a more joined-up health system.
Modelled after the UK’s National Health Service, Health NZ was responsible for running all public hospitals and health services.
But Reti said yesterday he had serious concerns around the agency’s oversight as well as the overspending each month.
He blamed the previous government for mismanaging its health reforms, resulting in “an overly centralised operating model, limited oversight of financial and non-financial performance, and fragmented administrative data systems which were unable to identify risks until it was too late”.
Levy, as commissioner, would need to “strengthen governance and management” and seek savings of $1.4 billion to ensure “financial balance”, Reti said.
Reti had opposed the changes while in opposition, calling instead for some DHB functions like asset management to be merged while avoiding over-centralisation of the health system. He warned New Zealand had no idea how expensive or disruptive the process would be.
Luxon yesterday suggested restructuring parts of the health system to remove layers of bureaucracy could help deliver savings.
He claimed there could be “up to 14 layers of management” between Health NZ’s chief executive and patients.
