CDHB Health Target Results

CDHB Health Target Results

The Canterbury District Health Board is pleased to be able to share with the Canterbury public its health target results for the first quarter of this financial year (1 July – 30 September).

The results are an indication of the substantial work that is being undertaken in just six areas of our health system to improve the health of Canterbury people.

CDHB Chief Executive David Meates said, “overall this region is doing extremely well in improving its services and the health of its community.” Work on improving access to elective surgery has for example meant Canterbury has exceeded the Ministry of Health’s target for the first quarter of the year. So far this year, 3,726 people have been discharged from CDHB hospitals after elective surgery. This was a 7.4 per cent increase compared with the same period last year.

“It isn’t easy to achieve a result like this and it really makes me proud of those who have been so committed to making more elective surgery available,” Mr Meates said.

For the first quarter of this year, 87 per cent of patients who attended Christchurch and Ashburton Hospital Emergency Departments were admitted, discharged or transferred to an inpatient ward within six hours; for 68 per cent of patients this was within four hours. “The target that the Department is aiming to meet is 95 per cent but the result is still an exceptional effort given that attendances at Christchurch Hospital’s ED were up by 9.9 per cent in a particularly cold and busy winter,” Mr Meates said.

CDHB is one per cent off a target of 85 per cent for two year olds in the region to be fully immunised. “This speaks volumes about the hard work done by primary care teams in encouraging parents to have their babies and toddlers immunised.”

Good progress is being made in helping hospital patients to quit smoking. Issues with data capture for some DHBs, including Canterbury, mean the published results are not reflective of the work that has been done. “CDHB has this year started a new programme to identify hospitalised smokers and provide them with advice and help to quit. We already know that better data capture and a more well established programme will see this result improve in the next quarter,” Mr Meates said.

At 97 per cent, Canterbury’s result in providing radiation treatment to patients within six weeks is slightly down on the 100 per cent target but is being remedied with the replacement of two ageing linear accelerators so that more patients can be seen and treated faster. The first of these new linacs is to be installed early next month and will be used for treatment by April next year. In the interim, staff are working extra shifts to keep the wait times as low as possible under the circumstances. The two new linacs are part of a $10 million project to improve oncology services at Christchurch Hospital. Other improvements will include a new chemotherapy suite, new clinic rooms, waiting areas and offices.

In the first quarter of this year 1,885 free annual diabetes checks were provided in Canterbury. The DHB has also identified 23,224 people with diabetes (higher than the expected rate) and is committed to establishing a pathway for diabetes services in 2009/10 under the Canterbury Initiative. As a result of this, Canterbury’s result for diabetes and cardiovascular services is expected to improve. The DHB has already met and exceeded the target for increasing the percentage of the eligible adult population who have had their cardiovascular disease risk assessed in the last five years.

For more information about the health target results visit www.moh.govt.nz

ENDS