Waitaki District Health Services (WDHS) had also named its negotiating team, chief executive Robert Gonzales said yesterday.
Negotiations needed to begin now if a new contract was to be in place before the current contract expires on June 30 next year.
On September 13, the WDHS board appointed a negotiating team of directors Chris Swann and Helen Algar, health company accountant Tony Evans, staff members Mandy Collins and Dr Peter Rodwell and Mr Gonzales.
This followed a meeting on September 9 between WDHS chairman George Berry and SDHB executive director of planning and funding Sandra Boardman.
In April, Oamaru Hospital reduced its bed numbers from 30 to 24 and Mr Gonzales said at the time the cuts were a "starting point".
Since then a clinically led review of services, which would inform the negotiations, had shifted the focus from six months ago when an expected 10% cut in funding was viewed as unworkable.
The final recommendations from the review had not yet been received by the negotiating team, but Mr Berry said the review process had provided "a way forward for our new contract", which would focus on providing services rather than cuts.
"We’re working on the basis that the review will be carried through because we understand that everyone accepts it, it just hasn’t been formally presented," Mr Berry said.
"We can’t afford to wait. We’ve got to get on with it.
"I think we’ve got assurances that adequate funding will be there for the review recommendations to be implemented but we’ve got to work through all the detail of that, of course."
A statement issued yesterday said WDHS received $9.7million a year from the SDHB for the provision of health services and Oamaru Hospital.
But Mr Gonzales said he could not comment on what future levels of funding would be at this stage.
"[The review recommendations] certainly will be part of that discussion," Mr Gonzales said.
"But it’s still subject to negotiation and being able to mutually achieve the best possible outcome for the Waitaki community.
"The saying is ‘the devil is in the details’, isn’t it? And so, until we know those details, we can’t comment."
Mr Gonzales said he expected to reach an understanding with the SDHB "early in the piece" as to what would occur if negotiations had not concluded before the current contract expired, "just to make sure that we’ve got some assurance that if the negotiations become protracted what is our position going to be".
