‘Winning’ not aim of report

Press, 8 April 1988, Page 4

‘Winning’ not aim of report

PA : Wellington The Gibbs’ hospital task force report is not about waging or winning of personal battles, the Minister of Health, Mr Caygill, said yesterday. Addressing a Hospital Boards Association, meeting in Wellington, nd said he wanted to define what the next two months of public consultation were about.

j “It is not bout my getting my way. It is not about the Minister of Finance or Mr Gibbs getting their way,” he said.

The issues at stake were major issues of public policy. They were not, as had been suggested by the ;media, about personal battles.

Mr Caygill said he strongly agreed with many of the specific proposals in the report. , These were:

• The general management structure which the State Sector . Act had al-

lowed should be put in place.

• Existing hospital boards making the transition to area health boards as soon as possible.

• Area health boards assuming the responsibility for their own capital funding. • More emphasis on continuing education within hospital budgets. • Participation in a hospital accreditation programme. • Profession review organisations being set up. However, the argument of the report was that no major improvement in the health ; system could be achieved without paying hospitals and health providers ) for the specific treatment they provided, rather ! than reimbursing them for what they spent.

. “I am not in fact sure that that is what happens now,” Mr Caygill said. The i population-based block i grant reimbursed

hospital and area health boards, irrespective of what they provided, what they spent, as clearly demonstrated by some boards who had been able to carry forward underspending. I Mr Caygill said the study commissioned from a Chicago firm, Arthur Andersen, suggested that about one-third of the achievable savings in the health system could be gained j from reductions through incentives.

But over two-thirds of savings could be achieved by other means, for example shorter lengths of stay, closing smaller hospitals, improved efficiency of, key operating departments and improved ’ efficiency of support functions.