30 March 2007

Media release

Research indicates 28% of rural premium and workforce retention funding unaccounted for

Recent research indicates approximately 28% of the rural premium and workforce retention funding, made available through the Ministry of Health, had not reached rural general practices.

The findings come from the Rural Support Funding Questionnaire commissioned by the New Zealand Rural General Practice Network (NZRGPN) and conducted by Conway Powell, Centre for Business Development.

“The amount of funding getting through to individual practices varied substantially,” said Conway.

“In some cases 100% of funding got through to the practice and in other cases none of the funding did.”

Conway, who is speaking at the NZRGPN Conference today, said there appeared to be several reasons funding wasn’t reaching the practices.

These included a delay in the DHB and/or the PHO passing the funding through to the practice or the PHO using the funding in entirely appropriate circumstances for other rural workforce retention e.g. helping to retain rural pharmacists.

He said other reasons for unaccounted funding were unclear but could be because the money was being used to fund other services such as PHO administration.

“It was clear that where PHOs communicated well with their practices, i.e. told them exactly how much money they were generating and what the PHO intended to do with it, practices seemed happy even if they hadn’t received all of the money.

“However, where the PHO hadn’t informed the practices of what was happening, the practices were more likely to suggest payment of funding went directly to the practice, rather than through DHBs and PHOs.”

A total of 110 practices completed the survey which was commissioned by the Network in response to anecdotal evidence that suggested some DHBs and/or PHOs may be withholding significant amounts of rural funding (that has been earmarked by government for supporting rural general practice) for other purposes.

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