Anne Kolbe, chairwoman of the panel advising the Director-general of Health on neurosurgery services in the South, has spent several hours in preliminary discussions with representatives of the Southern District Health Board and the University of Otago's faculty of medicine.
Mrs Kolbe, a paediatric surgeon who heads the clinical school at Auckland University, had meetings with health leaders on Tuesday evening and yesterday before returning to Auckland in the afternoon.
Mrs Kolbe has said she was keen for people to start thinking about what they wanted in the future service so that the time spent with the panel when it got under way was as constructive as possible.
She has also said she is "completely open-minded to what a new service will look like."
The panel, which also has Adelaide neurosurgeon Glenn McCulloch and consumer advocate David Russell as members, is expected to complete its terms of reference by the end of this week, ready to start work next week.
It aims to have its report before the director-general by mid-October.
