KEY POINTS:
A new education and research centre for up to 500 trainee health workers is to be built near Middlemore Hospital in south Auckland.
The Counties Manukau District Health Board management announced the scheme at midday.
It is hoped the centre will increase the supply of health workers and attract more local people into health training - to create a health workforce that more closely reflects the ethnic diversity of the district.
The new centre is also aimed at boosting the district's low levels of participation in tertiary education, reducing the reliance of the board and community health services on health workers from other areas.
The planned Centre for Health Services Innovation is a cooperative venture involving the health board, Auckland University, Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) and AUT University.
It will be sited on the other side of the railway line from Middlemore Hospital, on the health board's "western campus".
One of its main purposes will be as a teaching base for trainee nurses, doctors and other health workers. It will have a particular emphasis on increasing the number of health workers who are Maori, Pacific or Asian.
The centre will also focus on:
* Developing the health leaders of the future, especially clinicians,
* Improving clinical care and new models of care, and
* Linking healthcare research and best practice.
Auckland University plans to shift its South Auckland Clinical School, currently based within Middlemore, to the new centre, along with the school's fourth to sixth year medical students and some research and development work. MIT plans to shift its entire third year nursing programme.
The health board said it had received support in principle from the South Auckland Clinical School, MIT, AUT University, Auckland University and the Manukau City Council.
It is expected that four professorial chairs will be created in association with Auckland University - in emergency medicine; healthcare research and effective practice; nursing (also in association with MIT); and primary and community care.
"We have identified," the board management said, "that 800 to 1000 new health professionals and care workers will need to be trained each year to meet our future hospital and community care needs..."
"These workforce numbers are significantly more than current models of training are able to produce.
"In addition, as the location of New Zealand's largest Maori and Pacific populations and its second largest Asian population, Counties Manukau has some unique workforce requirements. To achieve effective integration with our community, we need to progressively evolve our workforce composition to reflect the ethnic profile of our population."
