New Southern District Health Board to focus on long term goals

Health Minister Jonathan Coleman sacked all members of the Health Board yesterday. Photo / George Novak

The new structure for the Southern District Health Board will mean more focus on long term goals, says a member of the newly appointed Commissioner's team.

Richard Thomson, who will assist commissioner Kathy Grant in bringing the troubled DHB out of a longstanding deficit, said the new structure meant a fresh start.

"I think what has happened over the last two or three years is there's been so much pressure on trying to deal with the short-term problems that the long-term work that's needed to sort it hasn't been done," Mr Thomson told NewstalkZB this morning.

Health Minister Jonathan Coleman sacked all members of the Health Board yesterday, saying he had no confidence in its ability to suitably handle longstanding financial problems.

Mr Thomson was a member of the former Board and said structural problems, rather than ability, meant the problem had lingered too long.

"I think that we've had the skills around the table, but I'm not sure we've had structures in place to do that long-term work and I think that's something the change perhaps makes possible.

"It's a circuit breaker, it takes a smaller group of people with a clear expectation that they will work in a more executive director role alongside management and that's different from a traditional board structure."

Mr Thomson rejected Government claims that the Southern DHB's troubles stemmed from underfunding during the last Labour Government.

"If you start on that assumption then you don't do the work to establish what the extent of your difficulties are, so I think it's a mistake to start from there," he said.