Health Minister responds to release of reports on troubled IT project

Health Minister Dr David Clark has welcomed the release of two reports dealing with the National Oracle Solution.

Late last year the Ministry commissioned Deloitte to review the National Oracle Solution programme to inform its advice to the Government.

David Clark said the Deloitte report had been a window into a troubled project.

“The whole point of the review was to salvage a project that was going off the rails,” David Clark said.

“When we took office we were deeply concerned about the waste of taxpayer dollars between 2012 and 2017 when $90 million was spent with little to show for it.

“Deloitte’s report makes clear that the project was not set up to deliver its expected benefits for DHBs. This underlines that there was an urgent need for the Ministry to intervene when it did.”

The process by which the Ministry of Health commissioned Deloitte to review the project has itself been reviewed by Audit New Zealand.

A request for the Audit NZ review from Parliament’s Health Committee has prompted the Ministry to release both reports today.

Audit NZ found that the Ministry followed the Government’s procurement procedures when it commissioned the Deloitte review but did not do enough to manage perceptions of conflict of interest.

“I’m advised the Ministry has accepted Audit New Zealand’s findings and has acted to address them”, David Clark said.

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