Clark praises health audit

Press, 1 June 1989, Page 5

Clark praises health audit

PA Wellington The Minister of Health, Ms Clark, has welcomed as constructive criticism an Audit Office report that says gross inefficiencies and mismanagement have led to long hospital waiting lists. Ms Clark said yesterday the report, “Management of Public Hospital Surgical Workloads,” would help ensure better use of resources and funds in hospitals. It gave hospital and area health board managers useful guidelines on how to handle waiting lists more efficiently and improve their patient services, she said. She hoped they would respond positively to the report and implement its recommendations wherever possible. Practical changes to the management of waiting lists — such as greater use of day surgery, more accurate estimation of surgery time and length of stay, and regular reviews of surgical workloads — would increase patient throughput, she said. The Opposition’s health spokesman, Mr Don McKinnon, urged Ms Clark to give hospitals more direction on how to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness in the surgical area. The Audit Office document followed the Gibbs Report of April, 1988 in highlighting deficiencies in surgical management in public hospitals, Mr McKinnon said.