Canterbury Health Business Plan Supported

Health Minister Bill English said today he had supported Canterbury Health's business plan for the year and noted the hospital had achieved a better-than-budgeted result in the last financial year.

"This year Canterbury Health is forecasting a loss of $1.3 million, which is a significant improvement on last year's loss of $10.8 million. This result was $10 million better than budgeted, and the hospital has continued to peform better than budget for the first quarter of this year.

"It is important that the hospital continue to work hard towards eliminating losses because the people of Canterbury need the certainty and security of knowing their hospital is in a sound financial position.

"Current highlights for Canterbury Health include:

the recently-announced decision to relocate women's health services to Christchurch Hospital and create a focus on women's and children's health
peforming 10 percent more operations this year
more than 100 heart operations completed at Christchurch Hospital.
"Canterbury Health is planning $62.5 million of capital investment, including $12 million for the relocation of services from Christchurch Women's Hospital to Christchurch Hospital and is now preparing a business case for this.

"The hospital is doing well on some of its key performance measures. Its average length of stay of 3.47 days puts it second in its group of four, and 63 percent of patients rate it very good, which puts it fourth out of 22 hospitals.

"With this year's business plan I am confident that Canterbury Health is in a sound position to continue providing public hospital services to the people of Canterbury," said Mr English.

For further information contact:
Liz Rowe, Press Secretary, 04-471 9154 (wk) or 04-383 5491 (hm)