The Otago and Southland district health boards' general planning and funding manager David Chrisp told this week's Southland meeting that the proposal being considered involved the boards no longer providing a house cleaning service, if that was all a person required.
The implementation of that, if it was eventually confirmed, would need to involve the quickest way for doing this, both for new people seeking the service and those already receiving it.
Both boards are trying to pull back their spending for the elderly in the community because they say they are spending millions of dollars more than they should according to national averages and their population-based funding.
Asked after the meeting whether there could be a risk of over-delivering other services such as personal care under such criteria, Mr Chrisp said there would need to be safeguards against that.
The needs assessment co-ordination teams could be relied on to manage any agreed access criteria appropriately.
A person considered to need only house cleaning would be provided with "a range of options and information", including referring them to an existing home support provider where they could buy the service.
Other boards had similar access criteria to those being considered, he told the meeting.
Responding to a question at the meeting about the controversial idea of telephone reassessment of those people already receiving low levels of housework help, Mr Chrisp said there was a role for "telephone reviews" which was not a reassessment, but it was not the only tool which could be used in Southland.
In the past, letters had been sent to people about their future level of support and that would continue.
There would always be a portion of those receiving services who would need a face-to-face reassessment.
In response to a question from board member Sajan Bhatia about common criteria for boards Mr Chrisp said some work was being done to align boards in the South Island, but nationally it was a bigger challenge.
Proposals outlining how to save more money in the area of elderly care are expected to go before the boards' joint finance audit and risk management committee next week.
• Concern was expressed in the community after last week's Otago board meeting, where Mr Chrisp said there were plans to use telephone interviews to review the needs of some 2400 Otago people receiving up to two hours' housework support a week.
The board has not been meeting planned savings in this area.
Plans for addressing this have yet to be finalised.
