Waikato DHB loses safe water accreditation

Waikato District Health Board has lost its safe water accreditation.

International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ) has confirmed the Waikato District Health Board (DHB) was formally notified on Friday that its accreditation for safe water had been withdrawn.

Waikato DHB is contracted by the Ministry of Health to monitor 90 drinking water suppliers.

IANZ chief executive Dr Llewellyn Richards said the organisation would now have to take some corrective actions to sort out the issues before it was reassessed. Richards was unable to give the reasons for the withdrawal, but said they were given in a report to the DHB.

The board said it needed to make six corrective actions which related to a significant backlog of work. The board blamed the backlog on a chronic shortage of qualified staff.

The board’s executive director of community and clinical support, Mark Spittal, said he hoped to have two more staff trained by early 2018.

This is the fourth accreditation the DHB has either lost or received a warning over in the past two years.

The board has been in the spotlight over the past few months following allegations around its former chief executive Nigel Murray’s spending and the resignation of its board chairman Bob Simcock.