Health Target performance still strong despite a shaken year

Health Target performance still strong despite a shaken year

The Canterbury Health System has made strong progress against the Health Targets in Quarter 1, despite ongoing quake-related challenges and two significant snow events during the quarter.

Canterbury District Health Board chief executive David Meates says the Canterbury Health System has shown incredible resilience in the most extraordinary circumstances.

“Our achievements this year are nothing short of remarkable. They are a testament to everyone, from primary to secondary level care, who have continued to get on with the job and do their best to keep services operating as well as meet and maintain health targets – especially when we are far from functioning in a normal environment,” Mr Meates says.

“The Canterbury Health System remains extremely fragile and our staff and patients have to work in or receive their treatments in a very fractured setting. Despite this, I’m proud to say we are still managing to deliver a world class service.”

However, the next 12 to 18 months are going to be an even harder test, Mr Meates says.

“There will be significant disruptions as a result of ongoing repair work happening to earthquake damaged buildings. To date, we have more than 7500 rooms and service areas needing some sort of repairs – ranging from cosmetic to more invasive. The cost of these repairs and the associated relocations and disruptions is expected to now exceed the previous estimate of $70 million dollars.”

Ensuring services can operate as normally as possibly will be challenging and will need ongoing commitment from staff, the people of Canterbury and our stakeholders to ensure we can maintain our high standards.”

Canterbury health targets achievements:

Emergency Department Health Target has been achieved for the third consecutive quarter, with 95% of people admitted or discharged within 6 hours;

Cancer Health Target has been achieved for the second consecutive quarter, with 100% of patients beginning radiation therapy treatment within 4 weeks of their specialist assessment;

The year-to-date Elective Services Health Target has been achieved delivering 3972 elective surgical discharges during the quarter;

Returned to pre-quake Immunisation Health Target levels, with 92% of all two year olds fully immunised, and continued to achieve high rates for Māori and Pacific children (91% and 94% respectively);

Returned to pre-quake Cardio Vascular Disease Health Target levels, with 72% of the eligible adult population having had a fasting-lipid or glucose test, and surpassed pre-quake levels for Māori and Pacific people; and

Surpassed pre-quake levels for the Diabetes Annual Reviews Health Target, reaching an all-time high of 61% of expected diabetics receiving an annual review and delivering increases across all ethnicities.

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