Controversial plans to have a general practitioner centre at Dunedin Hospital's emergency department will be among options to be explored at a meeting between board management and the Ministry of Health this month.
Under such a proposal, patients would be vetted and directed to the general practitioner centre if it was considered they did not need emergency level care.
Among the concerns raised when it was originally suggested were legal issues, with a private practice situated in a Crown facility, and fears that it might lead to staffing cuts in the emergency department.
When the idea was mooted several years ago it also involved establishing an accredited accident and medical centre to replace the existing Dunedin Urgent Doctors and Accident Centre.
Board chief executive Brian Rousseau said the ministry would be sharing information about how emergency departments worked in other parts of the country.
The board has been concerned about people attending the department who could be treated elsewhere.
One estimate has suggested it is as many as a fifth of the 37,000 patients seen yearly in the department, which is attending to about 13,000 more patients than it was designed for.
Mr Rousseau said some of the issues around why patients with non-urgent conditions were coming to the department needed to be discussed.
Even though the cost of visits to family doctors had dropped in recent years it appeared there was still a financial barrier.
He believed some people went to the emergency department because it was free.
Whatever was eventually decided, the board did not want to deter anyone from seeking treatment.
Dunedin Hospital has been providing care from 11pm-8am for many GPs (Mornington Health Centre has a doctor on call) since 2004.
Protracted negotiations between the board and the primary health organisations involved, over payment for this service, have still not been settled.
