Otago and Southland rate highly in a national ranking of the safest places to be if you need healthcare.
Data released by Treasury shows Otago slightly ahead of Southland for a low rate of ''amenable mortality'' - deaths that should not have occurred given the available health services.
Only Nelson Marlborough, Waitemata, Hutt, and Capital and Coast health boards were safer than Otago and Southland. Otago was on a par with Auckland District Health Board. The two areas are listed separately because the rankings use 2009 and 2010 data. The two merged in 2010 to form Southern District Health Board.
New Zealand rates slightly better in amenable mortality compared with other OECD countries, the Treasury paper says.
There was a marked difference between Otago and Southland in avoidable hospital admissions. Otago was the second-best performer, while Southland was one of the poorer-performing boards.
Unnecessary hospital admissions can indicate how well the community healthcare sector is functioning.
Rankings were age-standardised to take demographics into account.
The Treasury paper discussed how to limit health spending, projected to increase from 21% of total government spending to 31% by 2060.
The paper says 17% of total healthcare spending in New Zealand is from private sources, an amount that could grow as the private sector increasingly became a ''safety valve'' for the public sector. The public sector was unlikely to be able to fund technological changes, and people who could afford to pay for more advanced treatment may well do so, the paper said.
However, the Treasury did not envisage major changes to health's funding structure. The Government's lead role in purchasing was central to keeping costs in check. Potential cost-cutting measures include concentrating specialised services in fewer hospitals, allowing more health professionals to prescribe and changing what was funded.
''Ensuring we get the most efficient allocation of resources in the health system is especially challenging given that clinicians tend to make decisions about who receives services and there is no shortage of people with the ability to get some benefit from additional health treatments.''
The paper showed healthcare spending was heavily concentrated on older people, with women aged 85 and over costing nearly $16,000 a year on average. In comparison, New Zealand spent about $1000 on boys aged from 7 to 13, slightly more than on girls.
