The Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora (HNZ) report, an update of the outpatients building’s progress, dated late November, lists nearly every aspect of the building at ‘‘high risk’’ - and some as ‘‘extreme risk’’.
The report says the outpatient building will be completed in July and then have a 10-week ‘‘handover’’ period.
However, it could face staffing issues, logistical issues if staff were ‘‘split’’ across two buildings and funding issues if money was not made available for contingencies in the handover.
There was a ‘‘high’’ risk of the outpatient services not transforming as required, serious issues with the inefficiencies of a split site and ‘‘high risks’’ associated with the release of clinical staff to assist planning if the transitional funding did not come about.
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists chief executive Sarah Dalton said the only bright aspect of the report was the fact it confirmed the outpatient building was opening this year.
The inpatient building was due to open in late 2031.
‘‘When we met managers of HNZ, they were reflecting that they are trying to manage how you open the outpatient building when it was initially planned to open more or less in tandem with the new inpatient building.
‘‘But now there’s a five-year gap between the opening of outpatient building and the other building. So how do you make that function effectively?’’
There did not appear to be a proper staffing or recruitment plan for the opening of the outpatient building and beyond, Ms Dalton said.
‘‘The term ‘potential inefficiencies’ keeps popping up in this report ... I mean, that’s just code for the building won’t be able to function as intended because it won’t be staffed.’’
The report says, ‘‘if funding for operational transition planning does not eventuate then clinical staff will be required to assist putting Health Target delivery at risk ... if necessary clinical engineering resources are not available to support the outpatient building operational commissioning process then there is a risk to a clinically safe and competent outpatient building ‘go live’.’’
Ms Dalton said this meant the whole project’s budget of $1.88 billion was unlikely to be achieved if they wanted the outpatient building to function as well as possible.
‘‘There needs to be provision, or readiness to understand that your best guess at what the costs might be five years from when the initial plan is made might be wrong and they need to be willing to roll with those changes.’’
New Zealand seemed to have a history of building hospitals without taking into account how to staff them, Ms Dalton said.
‘‘We putter around and we open the building and once it’s built and it’s probably not built according to the original plan because someone gets cold feet, but then we build something and then we try to open it, but we can’t because the commitment to get staffing needed to make it go is not met.’’
Executive dean of Bond University’s business school, Prof Robin Gauld, said good project management was a process of ensuring that all aspects of an often highly complex project were solidly co-ordinated.
‘‘These are highly complex projects with a lot of subcontractors, normally a lead contractor, but quite often it requires an alliance between different lead contracting parties to ensure that ... everyone meets a common goal, which is delivering on time and in budget.’’
There had been ‘‘abject failures’’ across multiple governments, he said.
‘‘This is really the story of what happens when you delay projects and then expect them to finish on time.’’
This report appeared to chime in with similar assessments by Treasury, Prof Gauld said.
‘‘Hopefully as there comes more transparency around the project, it will bring more accountability to it to ensure that the project is delivered.
‘‘Whether it delivers on budget is going to be an interesting question.’’
