Wait list behind the hospital wait list

Ultimately this data will provide more comprehensive information for primary care on their patients.

The Government has made moves to track patients who are missing out on surgery, after years of controversy over the level of ‘‘unmet need’’ in the public health system.

Health Minister Jonathon Coleman announced work was underway to standardise data between District Health Boards (DHBs) so GP referrals could eventually be measured.

It’s a bid to track the waiting list behind the waiting list, which had caused headaches for former Health Minister Tony Ryall.

The Ministry had been forced to admit to Parliament’s health select committee that it had no idea how many people had not been placed on waiting lists because of backlogs, because the data was not collected.

‘‘Generally we know that patients can be referred back to their GP for a variety of reasons in addition to not meeting the threshold,’’ said Coleman.

‘‘These may be cases where management in primary care is more appropriate, such as if the patient has been referred for tests that primary care can access. Patients may also have been referred with incomplete information or to the wrong DHB.

‘‘We are keen to better understand the exact outcomes of GP referrals.’’

There had also been a number of reports and anecdotal evidence to show less urgent patients were being kept off official waiting lists, so DHBs could hit performance targets.

Coleman said the previous Labour Government in 2006 estimated that 25 per cent of all GP referrals to specialists were returned to GP care.

Research commissioned in 2014 by the Health Funds Association of New Zealand and the Private Surgical Hospitals Association found 280,000 people were told they required some form of elective surgery in 2013. But 170,000 of those patients were not on a waiting list.

The Government had lifted the number of patients receiving elective surgery from 118,000 in 2007-08 to 158,000 in 2014.

Coleman said more than 315,000 patients were now being assessed each year. The latest figures from the Ministry of Health show that over the past five years, elective surgeries increased by an average of more than 8000 a year.

At Budget 2015 the Government dedicated $98 million for increased access to elective surgery. That was on top of $110m committed in Budget before.

Coleman said it was a ‘‘significant undertaking’’ to standardise the way data was recorded by different DHBs.

‘‘New Zealand will be one of a few countries to be collecting information of this kind at a national level.

‘‘The Ministry of Health is working with DHBs to collect data in a comparable way. Ultimately this data will provide more comprehensive information for primary care on their patients.’’

The first phase – of collecting information on referrals received by DHBs for first surgical assessments – has been underway since July 2014.

The second phase will begin in October, and will include information on referrals for elective surgery, and some other procedures, including colonoscopy.

The third phase of the collection will commence in July 2016, and will include the full scope of the collection. This will encompass services, including diagnostics, and will allow linking of related referrals.

The project was expected to release the first set of reliable information in early to mid-2016.