Health groups to be 'shamed' into action

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New league tables for primary health organisations should name and shame the health groups into upping their game, the Health Ministry says.

The ministry plans to make the tables – showing performance in areas such as immunisation, cancer screening, and diabetes treatment – regularly available to increase public accountability, after the first table was revealed this week.

Primary health organisations are umbrella groups funded by the Government to run medical centres and community health programmes. The acting deputy-director of sector capability and innovation, Ashley Bloomfield, said yesterday that the tables were already used to assess performance and determine the allocation of a $25 million pool of "incentive payments".

But making the tables public would also increase public accountability through "an added impetus to PHOs that are not doing so well to up their game".

The released table, for the six months to June 2009, measures the performance of all 80 PHOs under 18 indicators.

For immunisation of under two-year-olds, PHOs in the Hutt Valley, Wairarapa, Wellington and Hawke's Bay were at the top, exceeding the target of an 85 per cent immunisation rate with rates of up to 93 per cent.

The bottom of the table were PHOs in Counties-Manukau, Northland, Bay of Plenty and Waikato with rates as low as 32 per cent. Dr Bloomfield said that while the tables were a snapshot of performance they were an important indicator of which areas the organisations had to improve in – "hopefully bringing everyone up to a better level".

Health Minister Tony Ryall said he hoped regular data would be available within six months. The tables revealed "huge variations between PHOs and within PHOs and that had to be addressed".

It was also important to make the tables useful for GPs and the PHOs.

The tables come as Mr Ryall moves to consolidate the number of PHOs to trim administration costs. He has indicated he wants the number of PHOs to fall to 40.

Capital and Coast District Health Board, which has seven PHOs, and Hutt Valley District Health Board, which has five, have been signalled as areas where mergers should go ahead.

- © Fairfax NZ News