Government welcomes HDC Report

The Health and Disability Commissioner's findings into quality of care provided to patients by North Shore Hospital confirm widespread community concern.

The Independent Report describes a situation where the care of five patients was compromised by inadequate systems and the failure of Waitemata DHB to resolve overcrowding and staffing shortages.

The Report says:

1. The District Health Board became fixated on arguing over the availability of funding under the population based funding formula at the expense of focusing on the challenges facing North Shore Hospital.

2. The Waitemata District Health Board's failure to plan has resulted in the situation described in this Report.

3. In addition, the Board didn't pay enough attention to issues raised by staff. Individual staff were really dedicated but were let down by the system in which they were working.

The Government thinks it is entirely appropriate that the hospital apologised to the families of the deceased and the one surviving patient. The Government wishes to extend its own expression of sympathy to the families who were affected by this system breakdown.

In anticipation of this Report, the new Government had approved $36 million to improve the North Shore Emergency Department and extra inpatient beds. This proposal includes an extra 26 emergency department cubicles (currently 16), another 19 beds in the admissions planning unit (currently 37), and an extra 48 medical inpatient beds (currently 170).

The Government is currently seeking a new Chairperson following the resignation of the former Chair of the Waitemata District Health Board.

Associate Minister Dr Jonathan Coleman also notes that the District Health Board is expected to report back to the Health and Disability Commissioner by 31 October 2009 on progress regarding implementation of his recommendations.

National has long said that an Emergency Department is the barometer of a hospital's performance as a whole. The Government is soon to announce the creation of a new target for Emergency Departments to deal with 95 percent of patients within six hours.

The Government welcomes this Report and expects that other District Health Boards note the conclusions this Report has reached. It is vitally important to raise the quality of the patient experience across the health system.