The soon-to-be-elected Southern District Health Board will work under the scrutiny of a crown monitor, Health Minister David Clark said in a surprise announcement yesterday.
"I want to ensure there is continuity of progress in the DHB," Dr Clark told the Otago Daily Times.
"There have been well-documented issues with the DHB, and I wanted to make sure I still had a line of sight into the DHB as democracy returns."
A crown monitor is appointed when the Health Minister wants greater scrutiny of a DHB's financial management and decision-making processes than regular reports to the Ministry of Health can provide.
Having a crown monitor in place will not be a novelty for the SDHB; the state of its finances resulted in one being appointed in 2009, and then replaced in 2013 after his retirement.
The board itself was eventually replaced by commissioners in 2015, with the 2016 board elections subsequently cancelled.
"We wanted to provide assurance to the new board coming in that that support (of a crown monitor) was there for when the transition happens, and I think it will be welcomed," Dr Clark said.
He would not be drawn on who would be appointed to the role, but said he had been considering installing a crown monitor for some time.
"I am not ready to make any announcement on that appointment, but I have naturally had some thoughts about it."
Campaigning for the SDHB elections, the first since 2013, is well under way.
Four board members will be elected in the Otago constituency and three from Southland, and Dr Clark can also appoint up to four board members of his choosing to the SDHB.
Dr Clark said he did not think many of the 21 people standing in October's election would consider themselves blindsided by his decision.
"Having a monitor is not a new scenario for the SDHB."
While any ministerial appointments would assist the SDHB, they would not provide the greater assistance he felt it needed, nor provide the feedback he wanted about the position of the board, Dr Clark said.
"The additional support and resources that those experts bring is something boards appreciate, and I don't think it will be any different in the case of Southern.
"The legacy of challenges DHBs face with deficits, workforce, buildings and so on, all of which have been neglected, those issues carry on into the future and I expect the SDHB will welcome the additional support ... you don't solve those historic issues overnight."
The SDHB deficit at the end of May was just under $40million; that figure is expected to increase markedly when the next DHB accounts are released, as boards will be meeting one-off payments for complying with changes to the Holidays Act and writing off costs from troubled IT project the National Oracle System.
