A delay in the introduction of the new Southern Primary Health Organisation has been reluctantly accepted by the Southern District Health Board, but it must not result in extra costs, Errol Millar says.
So far the board has spent $210,000 on the transition, out of a budget of $500,000 for the year.
The controversial new PHO, replacing nine existing organisations in Otago and Southland, was to have come into being at the beginning of July.
Its introduction is now delayed until October because arrangements organising payments to general practices are not complete.
The transfer of information on patient registers to the Ministry of Health, which would enable the ministry to calculate general practice subsidies paid through the PHO, would have to be completed this month if the PHO was to begin operating in July.
District health board chairman Mr Millar said he accepted this issue had to be addressed and that it would be "a complete shambles" if the PHO proceeded without it being sorted out.
However, any delay had to be "cost-neutral" to the board and discussions were being held with the transition board on that issue.
The district health board did not want to lose the potential savings from the move to a single PHO.
Among the expected savings would be a reduction in management fees paid to the PHOs, estimated to be about $250,000 per quarter.
Board general manager of finance and funding Robert Mackway-Jones said he hoped spending on the transition would be less than the $500,000 budgeted this year.
No money had been budgeted for the next financial year, beginning in July, but the board expected to be $1 million better off that year because of the reduction in management fees.
Mornington PHO chief executive Barbara Bridger welcomed the delay in the start time, but felt more work on the practicalities of the changeover could have been done earlier.
Attention could also have been given earlier to enlisting the expertise of current PHO staff. It was only recently a working party of PHO managers and chief executives had been set up.
Ms Bridger said it was a "crying shame" the district health boards had insisted on the new PHO rather than allowing the existing organisations to amalgamate, as was now happening elsewhere in the country.
If such change had been allowed, there would already have been good outcomes, she said.
Ms Bridger also considered it would have been beneficial had the chief executive of the new PHO been appointed by now, allowing the incumbent to contribute their view on how the organisation should be structured.
