The new Otago-Southland primary health organisation will initially be run from three regional offices in Dunedin, Invercargill and Alexandra.
Rural programmes will be co-ordinated through the Alexandra office, PHO transition board chairman Dr Conway Powell said in a report to go to the Southland District Health Board at its meeting today.
Ensuring the new PHO, which replaces nine existing PHOs, provided effective services to rural communities would have high importance.
The report, updating the board on the work of the transition board, said the new PHO would be a charitable trust with a board of nine trustees.
These would be nominated by Otago and Southland runanga, the community, nurses, medical practitioners and pharmacists.
Three advisory groups - clinical governance, Treaty of Waitangi and community - would also provide "expert advice" to the new board.
It was expected these groups would have a "critical role" in connecting the new organisation with its communities and interested parties.
The transition board had determined that, over time, the new PHO would be a funder or facilitator of services rather than provide services itself.
The transition board is hoping to transfer contracts between the boards and the PHOs and contracts between PHOs and health service providers, staff employment agreements and lease agreements through to the new PHO by July 1.
It hopes to do this through an assignment process, mutually agreed between the new PHO and each of the existing PHOs, with agreements on this reached by the end of this month.
This is a departure from the original proposal, which was to terminate all PHO agreements, but Dr Powell's report makes it clear that if individual PHOs do not want to take the "assignment route", then their agreements will be terminated.
From July, the focus would be to evaluate the clinical programmes transferred to the new PHO against the future needs of the Otago and Southland communities and available funding.
Dr Powell's report said there was some uncertainty about the funding available for next financial year, which could affect the number and range of health service contracts, outside of those for general practices, that the new PHO could undertake.
From July next year, the new PHO would also evaluate the future ongoing staffing needs of the new organisation.
His report does not outline how many staff are expected to be employed when the new organisation comes into being in July.
