Shane Reti: Health Minister on the plan to replace Health NZ's board with a Commissioner

The Health Minister has confirmed some changes will be made to Health NZ to reduce their multi-million dollar monthly overspending.

The agency's board will be replaced with a Commissioner to prevent future financial deficits.

Minister Shane Reti says people will lose jobs as a result of the new direction at Health NZ.

"From 2018 to now, 2500 back office administration and management staff have been taken on board - sometimes it's hard to understand exactly what they've been doing."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Ever, due for Zellen, the government has fired the Board
of Health New Zealand and replaced them with the Commissioner.
Health New Zealand is apparently currently overspending at a rate
of one hundred and thirty million dollars a month. The
Health Minister, doctor Shane reci is with us now, Hey Shane.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yay, good afternoon.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Either what are they spending that money on.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
A number of things? Well, first of all, that wasn't visible,
so the Order to General said there's no internal performance
monitoring framework, so no one was watching in the middle
of Health New Zealand as to where the money was going,
who was doing what, who was recruiting, who wasn't. There
was just no watching. When we start to peel it back,
which we've done over these past few months, and we're
made aware of it a number of areas, it's gone

(00:41):
into areas of recruitment, but not always in the areas
that we need them. I mean, we need nurses and maternity,
we need them in mental health, we need them in
critical care. That's not necessarily where the health workforce has gone.
There's been consumables and supplies that have blown out, there's
been issues around it around procurement. Just a number of
ears that have added up, and unfortunately without a monitoring framework,

(01:03):
how New zealandn't spot it until too late.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
One of the things that blew my mind today was
you guys said that between the frontline staff and the CEO,
there are fourteen lines of management. Now that's an obvious
cost saving. There. Are you expecting people to be fired
to tidy that up?

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yes, what we know is that from twenty eighteen to now,
twenty five hundred back office administration and management staff have
been taken on board. Sometimes it's hard to understand exactly
what they've been doing. Furthermore, over that period of time,
and you couldn't mind if that was the case before
your productivity metrics had gone up, but in fact, nearly

(01:39):
every health metric has gone down. So yes, Professor Levy,
we'll be looking to optimize the back office workforce.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Marji Appa as chief executive has gone right.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Look, that's actually a decision. Previously it was for the
board and now it's for the commissioner. Our role is
to organize the governance. It's then actually the role of
the board or the commissioner to employ or to arrange
the executive's structure.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Shane, thank you very much, appreciate your time. Best of
luck with that, doctor Shane, the rit Health Minister. For
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