Problems With Waiting Times Fund Fixed

The Health Minister today made it very clear that the Government is committed to seeing as many people as realistically possible get access to elective services.

"I want to re-iterate that one of the Government's priorities in health is to put booking systems in place to give people certainty about when their treatment will be.

"We have set aside large sums of extra money to fund a credible level of elective services. We expect people to get access to more elective services as a result."

Mr Creech was responding to the Waiting Times Fund review, which showed problems with the administration of funding to clear waiting lists had been picked up and fixed. The problem came to light as hospitals put booking systems in place.

"We have been concerned about the apparent gap between what we thought should be happening to the number of elective operations and what was happening.

"Investigations have shown that not all the money earmarked for elective services was being spent in that area. Instead it was being used to buy other health services so the total number of treatments was not increasing as much as anticipated.

"Once it was discovered what was happening we made sure the Ministry of Health and the Health Funding Authority took steps both to prevent it happening again and to increase the amount going in for more operations. The result will be more assessments, diagnostic tests and operations.

"I have made it very clear to the Health Funding Authority and the Ministry of Health what the Government expectations are.

"The Health Funding Authority will be spending $222 million over the next two years to clear waiting list backlogs and to improve the consistency and level of elective services across the country through booking systems," Mr Creech said.

"The health sector needs to realise that the money is for extra elective services and the old days when people thought it was okay to use it on other services are well and truly over. This may require a change in mindset - but the Government is determined that when extra is set aside for more operations that people should get more operations.

"While this is largely an historical matter tighter accountability, contracts and checks have been put in place to ensure further substitution doesn't happen. The booking systems will also prevent it from happening.

"The greater transparency of booking systems is just one of the advantages they offer over waiting lists. As well as greater clarity about funding New Zealanders will also have quite specific information about the clinical and social circumstances in which they can get publicly-funded treatment within a reasonable time."