DHB fails four of six targets

The shorter stays for emergency department target stays has nudged up to 92, still three points short of the 95 per cent target. Photo / File

Lakes District Health Board has only met two of its six national health targets, but says it is making good steps to meet the others.

The health board exceeded the target of improved access to elective surgery and the hospital side of providing better help for smokers to quit, but continued to lag behind when it came to children's immunisation, shorter stays in emergency departments, faster cancer treatment and providing more health and diabetes checks.

Reports on how health boards rank on each of the targets are released quarterly.

Health board communications officer Sue Wilkie said the increased immunisation target was now just one short of the target of 95, which represented the highest coverage for the Lakes population since targets began.

When they were first launched, Lakes had almost the lowest immunisation rate in the country.

The jump is being put down to a number of initiatives like putting a special service in place for people who may struggle with transport or large families, making sure all newborn babies are enrolled with a health provider at birth, and pre-calling the parents of an infant due to have their immunisations.

Miss Wilkie said in the past there had been mixed messages about immunisations

The shorter stays for emergency department target stays has nudged up to 92, still three points short of the 95 per cent target.

Lakes still struggled with this target but remained committed to working on its systems and processes with a view to improvement, she said.

The result for better help for smokers to quit stands at 99, with Lakes again exceeding the target of 95 per cent of patients in hospital who smoke offered brief advice and support to quit smoking.

The health board's results achievement of the primary care smoking target improved again, this time from 83 to 85 per cent.

Smokefree team leader Pip King said work on the smoking target continued daily with their health professionals and services providing smokers advice and support to quit.

Ms King said she was disappointed primary care did not reach the 90 per cent target this quarter, however the smokefree team was confident primary care would focus on the target over the next quarter.

Board chief executive Ron Dunham said the continuing steady progress against most of the targets reflected well on the commitment and ongoing efforts of health care staff.

He was particularly pleased about the increase in the immunisation rates, and said the outstanding result was a tribute to the hard work of GP teams, Well Child providers, community outreach teams, midwives, DHB staff and the immunisation programme team.

Lakes DHB report
*Shorter stays in emergency departments - Improved to 92, three points off the 95 target. Ranked 16th out of 20 DHBs.
*Improved access to elective surgery - Increased to 10 points above the target. Ranked 8th out of 20 DHBs.
*Faster cancer treatment - First time target has been reported. Sitting at 54 per cent compared to target of 85 per cent. Ranked 18th out of 20 DHBs.
*Increased immunisation - Improved to 94 per cent, one point off the 95 per cent target. Ranked 12th out of 20 DHBs.
*Better help for smokers to quit - Hospital side stayed at 99 per cent, above the 95 per cent target. Primary care increase to 85 per cent, below the 90 per cent target. Ranked 15th of 20 DHBs.
*More heart and diabetes checks - Stayed at 88 per cent, below the 90 per cent target. Ranked 11th of 20 DHBs.