When the Serious Fraud Office decided in winter not to pursue a complaint about the spending of millions of dollars by South Health Link, some thought that was the end of the matter. But, as Elspeth McLean reports, the Southern District Health Board says it is still not resolved.
Statements made in June news reports suggested the Serious Fraud Office's decision not to conduct a substantive investigation or refer the matter elsewhere meant the dispute was over, but SDHB moves to settle the dispute continue.
Board chief executive Carole Heatly said the board wanted to resume the negotiations which independent practitioners' association South Link Health withdrew from in August last year, following the board's referral of the dispute to the SFO.
However, the first hurdle may be getting South Link Health back to the negotiating table.
The dispute is over approval and accounting for the spending of about $5.3 million in savings (now believed to be more than $15million with the addition of interest) which South Link Health made on contracts in the 1990s.
Ms Heatly said the board would approach SLH once the independent assessment of SLH's application for a new primary health organisation was completed.
The report from the assessment panel on this should be in the hands of board commissioner Kathy Grant by the end of this month.
Regardless of the outcome of the application, the board would ''approach SLH and, on the basis of where we left off last August, ask that we re-engage'', Ms Heatly said in a recent email response to questions about the dispute.
''I'm endeavouring to restart commercial talks with SLH around monies which I believe still to be outstanding from a number of years ago and which should be invested in primary/community services to benefit patients.''
Ms Heatly said at the suspension of the talks last August, SLH ''had agreed with some of that but withdrew''.
SLH executive director Prof Murray Tilyard said the SLH board had received an email from Ms Heatly regarding resuming discussions on the savings dispute.
SLH board chairman Dr Dean Millar-Coote, who had been overseas recently, wanted to take this to the board before formally responding to the SDHB.
Prof Tilyard said all previous meetings with the SDHB before the referral to the SFO were without prejudice and no agreement had been reached.
''When we were advised that the DHB had referred the issue to the SFO, we broke off discussions as recommended by our legal adviser.
''With the SFO finding no case to answer, I believe that the board will be surprised that the DHB wishes to recommence discussions.
''The issue all along was not whether we had spent the money or not, but whether we had approval from the funder at that time to spend it. We have supplied significant documentation to this effect.
''On the basis that the potential fraud allegation was that we did not have approval and that the SFO found no case to answer, then the SLH board may believe that the matter is therefore closed.''
Asked why it was considered new negotiations would work when they had been unsuccessful to date, Ms Heatly said they were not new and the last negotiations were suspended by SLH because of the SFO referral.
The board had referred the dispute to the SFO after receiving advice from forensic investigators Beattie Varley, hired by the board in 2014 to review the dispute.
The Beattie Varley report has not been released, on the grounds of privilege, but Ms Heatly said when referring the dispute to the SFO the board relied on advice that the potential for fraud could not be excluded.
Beattie Varley advised that the question of fraud could only be determined by an appropriately structured and resourced investigation of a type which could only be conducted pursuant to statutory powers such as those of the SFO, Ms Heatly said.
The SFO had not provided a report or other information detailing the extent and nature of any investigation conducted by the SFO or its findings, she said.
At the request of the board's legal adviser, the SFO had provided an email setting out ''some limited advice as to the basis for its decision''.
That email was subject to section 41 of the SFO Act, which made it an offence to disclose it to any person, she said.
Asked if the board would seek a review of what happened at the National Health Board's audit and compliance unit after the board referred the dispute there for investigation and recommendations in late 2010, Ms Heatly said how the unit investigated matters referred to it was up to it - ''we simply await their findings''.
After careful consideration, the unit had judged there was no case to answer, she said.
''I can't judge their effectiveness, as we were never party to how they conducted their investigation, only their findings.
''I am aware it took a very long time [some years, I understand] but they did eventually reach a conclusion.''
Any findings of the audit and compliance unit are among documents which have not been released.
Information which has been released suggests the unit concentrated on trying to get the parties to negotiate a settlement.
The ombudsman's investigation into complaints, some dating back to May 2013, about the refusals of both the National Health Board/Ministry of Health and the SDHB to release documents related to the dispute is not yet complete.
