Otago and Southland community and public health advisory committee member Kaye Crowther said revised figures for Southland checks, about 865, would still be about 30% below the eligible population.
The implementation of the national B4 School check programme has been described recently by Health Minister Tony Ryall as "almost shambolic" and he has told boards they must meet their revised targets by the end of the year, when he intends to re-evaluate the programme.
This week's meeting was told information in the table which went out with Mr Ryall's letter to boards was not accurate, due to difficulties with the Ministry of Health's data collection.
Southland, which was shown to have only completed 46 checks, had actually completed 628.
Mrs Crowther said that figure was still only a little over half of the eligible population.
Under the system which applied before the B4 School check programme, 5-year-old children were "captured" once they got to school by public health nurses.
Fellow committee member Fiona McArthur raised similar concerns, saying she was worried those children who missed out on checks were often those with high needs and a strategy to capture them was needed.
It was difficult to see how this could be done if the service was not being driven through community services.
Senior contract manager Carol Gray said the Ministry of Health had indicated it did not want "mop up" services for those children who had not received the checks before school.
In response to Mrs Crowther's concerns about the cost of checks, which were reported to range from $400 to $1000, Ms Gray said the average cost of a check had been set at about $270.
The Ministry of Health was now paying per check completed, and the target for the coming year was about 865 for Southland and 1113 for Otago.
The number of eligible children in the figures provided in Mr Ryall's letter showed there were 1154 eligible children in September last year in Southland and 1668 in Otago.
Earlier this year, the committee made it clear it wanted the checks to be delivered by community health services, but Ms Gray said in the meantime public health nurses would continue to carry out the work as management were "waiting to see what the landscape of the primary health care sector" was across both boards.
(Both boards are considering issues around the configuration of primary health organisations.)
It was agreed Ms Gray should provide the next committee meeting with more detailed information on the programme.
B4 School checks
- Introduced with the aim of identifying health, behavioural, social and developmental issues in 4-year-olds which might affect their ability to learn.
- Delivered in Otago and Southland by public health nurses.
- Replace the eighth check under the previous Well Child programme which was delivered in Otago by community health care providers.
- $9.9 million budgeted last year nationally; expected to cost $9.4 million for the next four years.
