DHB deficits under wraps until after the election
The Ministry of Health has received District Health Board financial results for the past two months but is refusing to release them before the election.
The results from July and August were due with the ministry last week, but it will not release them, even in aggregate form, despite The Press arguing it was in the public interest to know the results before the election.
‘‘The figures are still being collated, they’re then reported to the Minister and then published. Last year the July and August results were published on the Ministry website on 19 October 2016. We expect a similar timeframe this year,’’ a spokesman said.
A spokeswoman for Health Minister Jonathan Coleman said he had not received the information and did not expect to have it before Saturday’s election.
‘‘They are following their standard practices.’’
An August 7 email from the ministry’s monitoring manager David Atkin to DHB financial officers, seen by The Press, said the ministry ‘‘will not be reporting DHB financial results for the month of July 2017 to our minister (Coleman)’’.
Therefore DHBs would not be required to complete the financial template for July, with the first template reflecting their performance for July and August due by September 12.
In a written comment the ministry’s group manager for system outcomes Sam Kunowski said there were two reasons for not reporting the July results.
‘‘The first is that a number of the previous financial year’s adjustments affect the results of the early months of the new financial year and make analysis and advice to Ministers less meaningful.
‘‘The second reason is that, given the first point, we have tried to lessen the burden on DHBs to report given it is a busy time of year with audit processes occurring.
‘‘Trends appear after the first quarter of the new financial year.’’
He said no July results were reported to Coleman last year either. ‘‘This is in line with advice to the minister in 2015, that early figures can be variable.’’
The DHBs reported a combined deficit of $117m in the 2016-17 year and the issue has become a political flashpoint as Labour argues health needs $2.3 billion to be restored to the level it was seven years ago.
In late August, Coleman said DHB deficits were not unusual and the National Government had inherited a combined deficit of $155m in 2008.
‘‘The combined deficit for 2016-17 is $117m – 0.8 per cent of the $13 billion DHB budget. Services will not be cut – there’s plenty of cash in the bank.’’
But Labour health spokesman David Clark said the Government had put pressure on DHBs to make savings without addressing funding cuts.
‘‘The important thing to note is that health funding has been severely constricted over the current Government . . . with increases of 2 to 3 per cent annually where they were, on average, 9 per cent under the Labour Government.’’
He said Labour would ‘‘have a conversation’’ with DHBs about how to manage the deficits.
Canterbury DHB had the biggest deficit for 2016-17 at $51.8m, followed by Capital and Coast at $25.1m, and Southern at $22m.
Sector sources have estimated that the DHB deficits for the current financial year at more than $160m.