Surgical centre without trainees

Photo / Thinkstock

North Shore Hospital's planned new elective surgery block is likely to operate without trainee specialists and junior doctors in a bid to shorten delays for patients.

The likely move, intended to increase efficiency, has surprised the Resident Doctors' Association, which says the number of places for trainee specialists is already of concern.

"It's generally accepted there aren't enough places to train the surgeons we need for the future," said association executive member Dr Bevan Jenkins, a surgical registrar.

Health Minister Tony Ryall will today announce approval for the $37 million building, to be erected at the North Shore Hospital in Takapuna and expected to open by early 2013.

It is part of the National Party's 2008 election promise to build 20 elective surgery theatres nationally over five years.

The first three, plus a refurbished theatre, were opened by the Auckland District Health Board at its Greenlane Surgical Centre in April.

The new North Shore centre is expected to reduce waiting times for patients, possibly by adopting different work practices which are said to have increased productivity and cut costs in a pilot scheme at Waitakere Hospital.

The pilot scheme's main features are:

Grouping staff in surgical teams.

Moving patients through the system in groups of similar age and samegender.

Paying the surgeons and anaesthetists a contract rate for each package of patient care.

Making the treating surgeon responsible for a patient from first assessment to the end of follow-up.

Limiting the medical staff to specialists - no house officers or registrars.

"It has reduced operating theatre time by more than one-third and sometimes up to half," said Waitemata District Health Board chairman Lester Levy yesterday of the Waitakere pilot.

It had reduced the length of time patients spent in hospital for elective surgery by more than 40 per cent, and overall the costs were lower, although he did not know by how much.

The chairman of the Health Workforce NZ agency, Professor Des Gorman, said there would be no net loss of medical training because of its omission at the centre, because the DHB would add an equivalent amount of training in its other facilities.