Concerns about whether the Southern District Health Board is on target in its plans to reduce spending on community care for the elderly are not helped by out-of-date Ministry of Health data, chief executive Brian Rousseau says.
The most up-to-date information provided to the board was to the end of February.
At last week's inaugural board meeting in Invercargill, board member Peter Barron wanted to know if the board was on target with its "recovery plan" to realign its spending in this area to national averages.
The board could not continue to "bleed" around home support and disability support services.
General manager of funding and planning David Chrisp said "too many dollars had flowed under the bridge" since the plan to reduce spending had been introduced to make all the savings this financial year.
By the end of the year, the board is expected to be $5 million over budget in this area. - $1.8 million in Southland and $3.2 million in Otago.
However, Mr Chrisp said he expected that in the first quarter of the next financial year the home-based support targets would meet the national average.
Mr Chrisp told the board the recovery plan was going pretty well.
Roughly half of those people who had received letters advising them of plans to cut their housework support had sought time-consuming reviews or reassessments.
In response to member Kaye Crowther's concern over review capacity, Mr Chrisp said "more resource" was being brought in.
There was much discussion about whether the board should have Otago and Southland graphs showing whether the targets were being achieved.
Member Richard Thomson said in the area of long-stay community hospital beds for the elderly, the Southland trend was going down while Otago's was going up.
Averaging this out and including them on one graph would not give adequate information.
There had been a different history and a different approach in the two provinces and the board needed to be able to understand the data to make decisions.
Mr Rousseau questioned whether giving Otago and Southland graphs was the correct process as long-stay hospital beds did not follow geographical boundaries.
There was a danger, with one board, in continuing to look at issues as they affected separate regions.
Mr Chrisp said he could understand the concern about the process.
The two boards' needs assessment teams were working together much more closely and the board was about to implement a single point of contact for those seeking access to residential care.
Mr Rousseau said he would come back to the next board meeting with some recommendations on how the information could be presented.
