Board members need to drive the vision and strategy for the Southern District Health Board, member Richard Thomson said.
During discussion at the hospitals' advisory committee (HAC) this week of the recommendations from the National Health Board assessment , Mr Thomson said his "old-fashioned view" was that this should be driven from the board and the executive management should be charged with delivering on it. Acting chief executive Lexie O'Shea said executive management's view would be the same.
Mr Thomson earlier expressed fears that the board's role was not clear in the review of the vision and strategy and he was concerned that dealing with the issue at the time the board was preparing next year's annual plan was too far away.
It could well be that the board vision was not the same as that for the individual components within the organisation.
It had to be clear how the board vision flowed down and linked to the various hospital structures.
Mrs O'Shea said the discussions within management were "at the scoping stage".
She indicated there would be some "sort of framework" to talk about when the annual plan discussions began later this year.
Acting HAC chairman Dr Malcolm Macpherson said the issue needed to be discussed at board level.
