A year-old recommendation for the Southern District Health Board (DHB) to attract public and private health providers to the Lakes District Hospital as a "health campus" has gained traction, with seven parties expressing interest.
The DHB announced this week it would be working with Southern Cross Hospitals, Southern Cross Primary Care, Queenstown Medical Centre, Bupa Care Services NZ Ltd, Queenstown Pharmacy Ltd, the Skin Institute amd Body Mechanics, which provides physiotherapy and rehabilitative services.
DHB funding and finance executive director Robert Mackway-Jones said it was an exciting project.
"The DHB is interested in supporting an expansion of services and in getting public and private providers working together for the benefit of patients," he said.
"This includes ... Queenstown-based services, but importantly needs to include planning for the wider Central Otago and Southern DHB boundary areas.
"It will be important to include Central Otago Health Services, who operate the Dunstan Hospital facility, in the planning work along with wider DHB specialist services.
"There is the potential to integrate some of the public and private services for the benefit of patients. The next phases of this process will establish the feasibility and viability of this."
Mr Mackway-Jones said the scope of services included day surgery, general medical services, pharmacy, aged care, palliative care, and rehabilitative services.
Part of the planning will include looking at diagnostic services, particularly to support day surgical services, which could include computed tomography (CT) scanning and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
"It is important to note that the parties will need to jointly work up plans, establish the viability of those plans and seek their final approvals," he said. "This work will ... determine the final shape of the health service development."
The DHB hoped to have draft plans in 2013.
The National Health Board expert panel called on the DHB to "extend an open invitation to appropriate health providers to relocate to the Lakes District Hospital site, supporting the development of better integration of care on a health campus", as one of its 21 recommendations to the board for sustainable health services for the Wakatipu basin, in August 2011.
