Thomson unaware of board direction

A Southern District Health Board member says he does not know what the organisation is up to in key areas, which would be unacceptable in the commercial sector.

Richard Thomson told yesterday's hospital advisory committee meeting in Dunedin he needed to know what was actually happening under the guise of ''Southern Way'', the board's new strategic direction. Despite being the ''most important'' thing under way, he did not ''have a clue'' how it was going.

He also suggested board members needed more oversight of a project addressing long radiology wait times. Lack of knowledge by commercial board directors on operational matters led to ''plenty of people standing in the dock'', he said.

Southern Way is a set of principles guiding the board's cost-saving plans, which aim to create consistent clinical services across Otago and Southland, with an emphasis on care in the community. In public statements, it is mentioned often as the reason particular decisions have been taken. Mr Thomson said he did not know how Southern Way manifested in practice, what issues it was revealing, or how the policy was changing and forming clinical services.

He felt like a ''broken record'' raising it, but believed board members needed to be more involved in the project addressing radiology waiting times. It was more than just an operational matter, he said.

''We are failing our population dismally and have been for such a long time.''

Radiology ought to be ''right, front and centre'' of the board's thinking.

In response, chief executive Carole Heatly said board members could judge Southern Way by seeing improvements in performance measures, like the regularly reported health targets. Culture change and creating a unified Otago-Southland organisation was a large part of the Southern Way project, she said.

The role of board members was that of a ''critical friend'', she said.

Of radiology, she said staff were making huge efforts to change how they worked to reduce waiting times, which are too long for routine scans. Urgent and semi-urgent scans were performed within acceptable time frames.

- eileen.goodwin@odt.co.nz

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