Health survey rebuff

Press, 1 September 1980, Page 30

Health survey rebuff

The North Canterbury Hospital Board has been criticised by the Nurses’ Society of New Zealand for refusing to take part in a national survey on the cost of health services. The society has distributed a questionnaire to all hospital boards requesting information on cost containment measures, with particular reference to what effect such moves would have on clinical services and staffing. The national director of the society (Mr D. Wills) has said from Auckland that the survey was intended to gain an overview of ..what was happening in boards throughout the country. ..

“Unfortunately officials of the North Canterbury Hospital Board have advised that it is not the policy of the board to disseminate the type of information required,” Mr Wills said. . The North Canterbury Hospital Board ■ will spend almost $lOO million of public money in the coming year, Mr Wills said. “It should rethink its attitude to such matters. In our view there is a need for more open management from the board, particularly with regard to the fact that it is a public body elected by the public and funded publicly.”

1 , So far more than half- of , the hospital boards in the . country had agreed to takq part in the questionnaire,. The North Canterbury Hospital Board was the . only, board to refuse to take partMr Wills said. . ? ■ An officer for the board has confirmed that- the board had decided, not to supply information' as requested in the Nurses’ Society questionnaire. “It is not board policy, to give out this sort of information. It would have been’ an expensive and'" time-con-suming exercise and we cannot be at the beck and call of every organisation,’’ he said. '