SDHB praised in screening report
THE Southern District Health Board was under pressure to clear waiting lists before joining the national bowel cancer screening programme but delivered on time, an independent review of the programme says.
The review, headed by Gregor Coster, of Victoria University, was instituted after thousands of people who should have been invited to take part in bowel screening during the Waitemata DHB’s pilot programme missed out.
That omission resulted in some patients developing cancer and at least one person died of bowel cancer which might have been detected by screening.
Prof Coster’s report, released yesterday, was mainly focused on ways the introduction of the national screening programme could be improved.
However, he and his panel also looked at how DHBs which had already joined the programme fared.
The Southern DHB joined in April, and Prof Coster said its readiness reports before the deadline were ‘‘robust, detailed and generally of high quality.’’
Before the programme went live, the SDHB bowel screening team had to clear a backlog of overdue colonoscopies and also wait for work on a new gastroenterology ward at Dunedin Hos pital to be completed.
‘‘Southern DHB did well, but the consequence of addressing a surveillance backlog some years ago meant followups placed pressure on surveillance targets, although these were met before going live,’’ the report said.
The review endorsed the screening programme as an effective way of tackling a cancer which afflicts thousands of New Zealanders and which kills about 1200 people annually.
However, it questioned whether all DHBs were ready to join the programme, and raised issues about workforce recruitment, IT management and relationships with the public as requiring attention.
Health Minister David Clark, who commissioned the report, said it should give the public confidence in the safety and value of the programme.
‘‘Once the national bowel screening programme is fully implemented it is estimated that as many as 500700 cancers each year will be detected early,’’ Dr Clark said.
‘‘This report provides timely recommendations to help make this a reality.’’
Bowel Cancer New Zealand spokeswoman Sarah Derrett said the report was a positive first step but it was ‘‘essential the workforce capacity issue is addressed urgently’’.