Widening the membership of the proposed Southern District Health Board clinical advisory committee to include representation of community health practitioners is to be explored.
The committee is required to be set up as part of the merger of the Otago and Southland district health boards, but its membership is yet to be settled.
Chief executive Brian Rousseau told the new board's first meeting this week hospital clinicians in both Otago and Southland favoured the inclusion of representation from the primary care sector.
The committee was sought by Health Minister Tony Ryall as part of the board's undertakings regarding the May merger, to ensure that issues concerning senior medical staff in Southland were addressed.
Chairman Joe Butterfield said a criticism of health boards generally was that there was not a good connection between the board, its management and hospital clinicians.
It was critical that this was developed and he would not want to see attempts to develop that relationship watered down by spreading the role too much.
"It's either to sort out hospitals or sort out the whole health system."
While there should be some input from the community sector to make sure the relationship between the two groups was working, the committee should not be a surrogate for the district health board, he said.
It was agreed that management would discuss the issue in the community sector and come back to the board with feedback at the February meeting.
The terms of reference before the meeting showed the objective of the advisory committee is to give the board advice on matters of clinical significance, giving the example of the development and implementation of services on the board's single service, many sites model.
The suggested membership is 10 people.
