Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Rob Campbell: Former Health NZ Chair talks improving statistics from the health system

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Rob Campbell: Former Health NZ Chair talks improving statistics from the health system · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Got some numbers that show the health system might be
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: getting back on track. Cancer treatment wait times are down
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: more than eighty six percent getting treatment within thirty one days.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Eighty two percent of kids fully immunized by age two,
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  Speaker 1: that's up six percent on last year. ED patients seen
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  Speaker 1: within six hours. That's up from seventy one to seventy
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  Speaker 1: four percent on a year ago. Rob Campbell former healthings
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  Speaker 1: he'd share with me this morning, Rob, good morning, good morning.
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  Speaker 1: Run something to celebrate.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost as if we should get Dame Knowles
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  Speaker 2: and to celebrate with us with some targets, isn't it.
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  Speaker 2: Or maybe that's been tough these days. But really, I
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  Speaker 2: think the minister's staff have made a mistake here, Ian.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: I think they've issued the wrong press statement. I think
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  Speaker 2: what the Minister really wanted to say was that he
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  Speaker 2: apologized to all the doctors and nurses who's been castigating
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  Speaker 2: for the last couple of weeks for not putting patients first,
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  Speaker 2: because we find that, in fact, being short staffed, been
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  Speaker 2: short paid, they have in fact been putting patients first
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  Speaker 2: and meeting his targets. So I'm sure he wants to
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  Speaker 2: apologize and get their problem sorted out for them In response.
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  Speaker 1: How does that work?
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  Speaker 2: Though?
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  Speaker 1: How do you you say they're short on pay, short
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  Speaker 1: on staff, they've got a minister who's angry, and yet
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  Speaker 1: the system's improving. How do you actually explain that.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think it's hard to explain for anyone who's
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  Speaker 2: worked in a large business over any time. So if
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  Speaker 2: you set targets and in the structural management that they
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  Speaker 2: are to achieve those targets, typically they will be able
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  Speaker 2: to produce some results. And these are good results. I'm
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  Speaker 2: not gain saying that at all. These are good results.
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  Speaker 2: It's an improvement. The issues are what have you not
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  Speaker 2: done in order to achieve these specific results. It's one
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  Speaker 2: of the dangers of targets that you do achieve the
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  Speaker 2: ones you aim at, but you're not achieving other things
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  Speaker 2: within the within the health system. Now there will be
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  Speaker 2: some things which are lapsing in order to achieve this. Now,
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  Speaker 2: these are the targets set the minister set. Minister sets
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  Speaker 2: so he'll be happy. They're not unreasonable targets in themselves,
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  Speaker 2: but other things won't be happening. And the task for
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  Speaker 2: our public health system is really not so much to
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  Speaker 2: hit specific targets or to improve specific targets. But can
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  Speaker 2: we rebuild our health system into something which across the
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  Speaker 2: board is effective, efficient and resilient, And sometimes targets can
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  Speaker 2: cut across that. I suspect we'll find in due course
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  Speaker 2: through a ways this is happening. But take that. Having
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  Speaker 2: said all of that, you can hit these sorts of targets,
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  Speaker 2: will improve these sorts of targets. But this is good
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  Speaker 2: news for the people who have got the service more
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  Speaker 2: quickly or more effectively. I'll say that is good news, absolutely.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Rob There's a text coming from Morning Roger. He says, Hi,
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  Speaker 1: run The ED waiting time is rigged. The starting time
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  Speaker 1: begins from when the patient is first seen by a clinician,
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  Speaker 1: not the time that they arrived. I took my daughter
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  Speaker 1: to Waikata ED and waited five hours to see a doctor.
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  Speaker 1: After arriving, the ED wait time only recorded as an hour.
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  Speaker 1: Is that true?
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  Speaker 2: Those things certainly do happen, and it's one of the
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  Speaker 2: problems with targets is that information is often structured to
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  Speaker 2: meet the target. That's quite common problem across not just
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  Speaker 2: in the health service, but in other organizations that introduce
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  Speaker 2: these racial specific sorts of targets, so there will undoubtedly
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  Speaker 2: be an element of that happening, but I wouldn't question
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  Speaker 2: that there has been some improvement in these specific targets overall.
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  Speaker 1: Appreciate your time, Rob, Rob Campbell former health ends you'd
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  Speaker 1: share with us this morning. For more from Early Edition
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talks it'd be
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio