A Ministry of Health adviser says he'd like to know why money earmarked to reduce health inequalities for disadvantaged people is being used to pay GP clinics to take Auckland patients' blood samples.
Procare Network North, a primary health organisation which serves 100,000 patients in Auckland, has decided to pay $5 to its contracted clinics for each blood sample their nurses took.
Procare Health chairman Dr Peter Didsbury said the decision was taken to help the transition in community laboratory testing from Diagnostic Medlab to Labtests.
"We are still waiting for Labtests to get all their systems working well so they have the efficient system we had hoped they would have," Dr Didsbury told the New Zealand Herald.
The board felt it was important to help patients by providing what, he said, was effectively a subsidy to Labtests.
The money comes from the Services to Improve Access fund, which is available to reduce inequalities among Maori, Pacific people and those in deprived areas.
Dr Jim Primrose, the Health Ministry's chief adviser on primary health care, said it was up to district health boards to spend the fund.
"It would be interesting to understand the DHBs' rationale on the use of the funding," he told the paper.
Dr Didsbury said Procare Network North had health board approval for its scheme and that use of the funds would improve patient access to testing.
Labtests chief executive Ulf Lindskog said it was a subsidy from Procare to its practices rather than a subsidy to Labtests, and that it made the decision without consulting his company.
The move comes as Labtests takes over the community laboratory testing contract for the Auckland, Waitemata and Counties Manukau health boards, which is worth $560 million over eight years.
Labtests has taken over testing progressively in the three regions, starting with Counties Manukau on August 10 and ending with Waitemata two days ago.
