King Annette: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to MembersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members[Sitting date: 23 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:14182. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]4.Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) to theMinister of Health: Is he satisfied with the performance of Health Benefits Ltd; if so why?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health): Yes within the challenge of standardising administrative and procurement processes across 20 district health boards which have generally been operating independently. The goal of this 5-year strategy is to use the power of standardisation in bulk purchasing to move resources from the back office to the front line. This is very important because back-office administration staff numbers grew by over 40 percent or from 8000 to close to 12000 under the previous Labour Government.Hon Annette King: What concerns does he have about the ability of Health Benefits Ltd to actually achieve the $700 million in cuts to district health boards over the next 2 years in light of the fact that the Health Committee was told by Health Benefits Ltd that no breakdown of the cuts was available?Hon TONY RYALL: I am very confident that it is going to be able to meet the achievements set out in its State-owned enterprise statement of intent. I would have to say that the member is quite wrong to characterise these as cuts because they are actually savings from procurement activities. So for example moving to one bank nationally bringing the district health boards’ overnight bank accounts together has saved $4 million which goes straight back into front-line services for patients. That is not a cut; that is a saving.Hon Annette King: Has he seen a breakdown of the cuts claimed to have been made by Health Benefits Ltd such as in this report leaked to me a few days ago; if he has seen such information can he give an assurance that the $2 million that has been cut from wound care is not affecting the recovery of patients?Hon TONY RYALL: I cannot see that schedule from here but what I can tell the member is that Health Benefits Ltd is making a significant contribution in making savings. So for example moving from having 18 suppliers of gloves to six has saved $6 million over a 3-year period. Similarly through better negotiations of insurance arrangements Health Benefits Ltd has contributed to savings of almost $7 million in the insurance costs for district health boards. When you have inherited a situation where bureaucracy—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That answer is now getting quite long enough.Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table the leaked report I have of all the cuts that have been made because—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is enough of a description. It was described well in the supplementary question. Leave is sought to table that particular document. Is there any objection? There is objection.Hon Annette King: Why was this information denied to the select committee and what is there to hide or is there concern already that the $1.1 million that has been cut from children’s oral health is adversely affecting their dental care?Hon TONY RYALL: I would have to check the veracity of the member’s information because my—Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I sought leave to table the very—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I want to know what the point of order is.Hon Annette King: My point of order is that the Minister is challenging my word based on something—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Minister had said he would have to seek validation of your words or words to that effect.Hon TONY RYALL: I know that over the last 4 months the member has submitted over 400 Official Information Act requests to district health boards so I am unable to comment on every single one of them. But what I can say—Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Sorry but my question was not about how many Official Information Act requests I have sent to district health boards. I asked why this information was not available to the select committee.Mr SPEAKER: The difficulty we have now got is that I can hardly remember the question because I have had two points of order. So what we will do to try to tidy it up is we will get the member to ask the question again and we will get the Minister to attempt to answer it.Hon Annette King: Why was this information denied to the select committee and what is there to hide or is there concern that the $1.1 million already cut from children’s oral health is adversely affecting their dental care?Hon TONY RYALL: I think there has been a remarkable amount of information put out about Health Benefits Ltd. I would have to check the detail of what that member has said. It may be like her response to the South Canterbury District Health Board’s numbers where in an Official Information Act request the figures were amended. The member has not yet explained why she did that. But what I do know is that Health Benefits Ltd is making considerable savings that are being delivered to patient care. For example—Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Minister has strayed a long way from the original question and I think it is probably time to move to the next question do you not?Mr SPEAKER: Order! On this occasion the member is not correct. The Hon Annette King asked three questions. The first was why the information was denied to the select committee. The second question was what there is to hide. That is the one the Minister is spending some time answering. The third question was then something about oral health. Members risk getting a confused answer that will not be to their satisfaction when they ask a supplementary question that actually has three parts to it.Hon TONY RYALL: What Health Benefits Ltd is doing is it is making savings in administrative and procurement costs that are being used to improve oral health and other services. I can tell that member that the number of kids who are waiting to see a dental therapist is far lower than when I became Minister of Health.Hon Annette King: Has he been advised that Health Benefits Ltd’s finance supply chain and procurement project has had little planning is causing considerable concern and is resulting in increased costs to district health boards; if so what action has he taken to stop a potential disaster?Hon TONY RYALL: Of course district health boards are going to invest some money to make quite considerable savings in the future. For example with the changes that we are making to finance procurement and supply chain management it is estimated that we are going to save considerable hundreds of millions of dollars over a 10-year period. All that money is going to go back into front-line services for patients—more elective surgery faster cancer treatment better access to emergency departments. We simply cannot carry on as Labour did with a 40 percent—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That answer is now quite long enough.