Health board priority: reducing waiting list

Press, 13 May 1989, Page 11

Health board priority: reducing waiting list

By

SARAH SANDS

Reducing the huge waiting list for surgery and outpatient appointments at Canterbury’s public hospitals will be a high priority for Canterbury’s new area health board next month.

The acting general manager of the Canterbury Hospital Board, Mr Ron Parker, said the new area health board would consider several options to control the waiting lists. It would also try to find an over-all strategy to reduce the time people spent on the waiting list, he said. Options to be considered included the redistribution of resources, hiring more specialist staff and contracting

some surgery to the private sector, Mr Parker said.

The Canterbury Hospital Board was told this week that 4992 people are waiting for surgery in public hospitals.

Of these, 1302 have waited between three and six months, 851 have waited between six months and a year, 1066 have waited between one and two years, and 424 have waited more than two years. Mr Parker said the waiting list could never be eliminated because it was a means of scheduling people for surgery.

“The key is not the number on the

waiting list but how long they are waiting.” In some specialities, people were waiting for a year after being referred by a specialist before they were seen at an out-patient clinic, Mr Parker said.

A waiting time of six to eight weeks or less was the preferred maximum waiting time, he said. “When you look at the waiting list figures, the waiting times vary significantly between specialities. A priority of the new area health board will be attacking these waiting list times so that there are not the imbalances between specialities.

“That means we are going to have to look probably at shifting resources to areas where there are unduly long delays and recruiting extra specialist staff.”

Area health boards had the facility to contract with other health care providers and this was another option to be considered, Mr Parker said.

“One idea the board could perhaps consider might be to contract out some routine surgery which could unclog the waiting list so the board could concentrate on the more complex cases.” More effective use of day surgery could also make a significant impact

on the waiting list, ne said. "If planned and operated correctly, a properly functioning day surgery unit can increase the throughput of patients for appropriate surgical conditions.”

Mr Parker said Canterbury’s waiting list had to be seen in perspective although 4992 were waiting for surgery, more than 40,000 people were admitted to hospital each year. “It is also very interesting to look at the waiting lists of the other boards in New Zealand. Palmerston North, for example, which is less than half our size, has more than 3000 people on the waiting list.”