We wrote to the chairpersons of district health boards (DHBs) about the main findings from our 2019/20 audits of DHBs. We’ve published the letter on our website.

The letter also highlights the challenges DHBs will face in the year ahead given the proposed reforms to the health sector. We urged DHB chairpersons to focus on:

• Management and governance capacity for dealing with change
• Tracking performance
• Risk management

Despite the significant disruption caused by Covid-19, we were pleased that our audits did not find any significant deterioration in DHB control environments. DHBs made appropriate disclosures about the effects of Covid-19 in their 2019/20 annual reports. These included suspending some activities (such as planned surgeries) and starting others (such as testing services and supporting managed isolation).

There are common themes arising from our audits for DHBs to address:

• progressing outstanding Holidays Act 2003 payments;
• identifying and monitoring DHBs’ main financial risks; and
• reassessing DHBs’ informations systems and information security.

We also include a series of questions that could form the basis for conversations with management.

We’d like your feedback: Our website includes a feedback form. Please tell us if you found our information useful.

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