University of mini传媒 public health expert, epidemiologist Associate Professor Arindam Basu (pictured above left).
The government has announced听听to the health and disability system. The changes include听replacing the 20 DHBs with听a national body 鈥 Health NZ 鈥 charged with planning services nationwide, establishing a M膩ori Health Authority, and creating a dedicated agency for public health.
A University of mini传媒 public health expert, epidemiologist听Associate Professor Arindam Basu, of the School of Health Sciences in UC鈥檚 College of Education, Health & Human Development, comments on this morning鈥檚 announcement:
听鈥淭his is a significant overhaul of the governance architecture of our health system. In particular, abolishing DHBs to establish a unified NHS-UK style centralised system, with parallel arms for M膩ori health and public health systems, may have important implications for costs.
鈥淚n an overhaul of this magnitude, any comment now is premature in terms of the eventual overall performance of the health system 鈥 in terms of costs to care, access to care, and quality of care. However, there are opportunities and challenges worth considering.
鈥淥n the opportunity side, the administration is simplified by doing away with 20 different organisational elements 鈥 the abolition of DHBs 鈥 but such centralisation also carries with it the potential to become a complex monolith, and risks losing the efficiency that each individual unit might provide in a federated system.
鈥淚 greatly appreciate this change has been made while keeping in mind the perspectives of the providers (the doctors and the caregivers) and the patients. Hence, with this change I believe access to care will be significantly improved for everyone.
鈥淭he establishment of the M膩ori Health Authority is definitely a welcome move as such a structure will help to mitigate the existing inequitable access to care for M膩ori.
鈥淓qually, the newly created National Public Health Authority replacing the current 12 Public Health Units is likely to improve the coordination of the services. In particular, for the current and future pandemics, such a structure will make backward and forward contact tracing very efficient.
鈥淥verall, as a public health researcher/academic, I welcome this move, and look forward to it. Having said that, how the cost to care will play out for payers and patients is a space to watch.鈥
(No conflict of interest.)
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