Health board reconsiders meeting schedule

The Southern District Health Board's hospitals' advisory committee is having a rethink about the frequency it meets, and is recommending it keep meeting monthly.

Given the number of significant issues on the DHB's radar it seemed sensible to keep 10 meetings, rather than drop to six, chairman Paul Menzies told the meeting.

He put forward a recommendation, to be considered at today's full board meeting, to reverse a decision at the end of last year to reduce the number of meetings.

The committee was busy dealing with issues arising from the Dunedin hospitals' master-site plan, the highly critical National Health Board Dunedin Hospital review, and national health targets, Mr Menzies said.

Committee member Dr Branko Sijnja said the committee had "a lot on our plate" and should keep the extra meetings. Members could "lose touch" with issues if they were held less often.

Dr Malcolm Macpherson disagreed, saying it depended on "whose plate" those issues rested, because if too much staff time was spent preparing for meetings, it stopped them doing other things.

In December, board chairman Joe Butterfield argued that every two months was adequate for the committee to do its work, and would lead to better governance and fewer staff hours wasted preparing reports. The 2012 meeting schedule was redrawn to accommodate the change.