Roy Heather: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Roy Heather: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:622;Page:17225] 
12.  
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: How does she explain as found by Treasury that in the last financial year a 7 percent increase in hospital spending has produced only a 1.5 percent gain in hospital service outputs especially given that Treasury officers sounded the alarm on declining hospital productivity over a year ago? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 The Government has done its bit for productivity today. Mr Swain has helped to produce a 5 pound 6 ounce baby daughter and I would like to congratulate him on that. In answer to the question the Treasury report itself contained the answer. The member has chosen again to quote selectively. I will read from the report and use Treasury’s words: “As discussed previously officials are currently undertaking work looking at hospital productivity and the value gained from additional funding. Hospital activity does however cover only a portion of DHB activity—approximately 60 percent—and available data only covers at most half of hospital output within that. Furthermore Government policy is increasingly focused on areas outside hospital activity such as primary care.” 
Heather Roy 
: What concerns has the Minister about hospital productivity given that her own data shows that under her stewardship the number of people who have died while on her waiting lists has doubled the number forced to go private has trebled and nearly 1500 people have been waiting for surgery for 2 years or more on her active review waiting list? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I refer the member to the Treasury report itself and to the ministry’s comment telling people to be very careful in selectively quoting from figures. For example the member has just quoted that people have been forced to go private. Once again the member cannot find her way around the data and I suggest she looks again at that particular release from New Zealand Health Information Service. It is headed “Publicly Funded Events Only”. The figures she uses include operations paid for by the public purse and carried out in private hospitals. Is that not what the member was asking for? 
Steve Chadwick 
: Is the Minister aware of any other inaccurate reporting of health information? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Yes. Let me give some examples. Claims have been made that funding for devolved services has been presented as a funding increase—wrong. Claims have been made that district health boards are not funded for cost inflation—wrong. Claims have been made that people have died waiting for for example fertility treatment and that that has caused their deaths—wrong. Claims have been made that individuals have been funded on the basis of their race—wrong. I am afraid the inaccurate information of the ACT member is a daily occurrence. 
Judith Collins 
: What confidence can the New Zealand public have in this Minister given that these same concerns are reflected in earlier Treasury reports and letters from the Minister of Finance yet nothing has changed other than the increase in budget given that the waiting lists were going to be blitzed by Labour but remain static and given that around the country the health service is reaching breaking point? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I refute all of the above. In fact if the member reads the report—she obviously has not—she will see that Treasury stated in that report: “Treasury intends to work with the Ministry of Health over the coming months to improve the quality of performance indicators around reporting productivity.” No country in the world is able to accurately produce information on hospital productivity although certainly in New Zealand we are going to have a go at it. The other thing the member might be interested to know is that hip and knee replacement operations this year are 30 percent up on last year. 
Judy Turner 
: Does the Minister agree that when Treasury reports that delay in implementing new programmes rather than actual savings is the reason for district health board surpluses finding innovative solutions to health workforce shortages and not merely improving data collection of district health board performance is the key issue in combating declining health sector productivity; if so when will we finally see “situations vacant” columns in our newspapers free from health job after health job that needs to be filled? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I agree with the member but it actually needs both. 
Rodney Hide 
: Does it not concern the Minister just a little notwithstanding her bluff and bluster and her constant denial of the facts— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Please come to the question. 
Rodney Hide 
: I am Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Come to it now not with those irrelevant comments. Read the Standing Orders. Please ask the question. 
Rodney Hide 
: You would not let me start again would you? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Yes. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Does it not concern the Minister just a little that on the best figures Treasury has provided for every dollar she has put into the health service she has produced only 22c extra in health services; and does that not reflect the long queues the people dying while on waiting lists and the difficulties New Zealanders are having with the health system notwithstanding the money she has poured in? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The member might be interested to know where the additional money goes in health. In the last financial year by far the most money went into increasing wages. In terms of the difference between clinical services and non-clinical services it has not changed; in fact it has improved from when National was in power. Most of the money has gone into wages. It has also gone into surgical supplies. It has gone into the cost of blood services. I can only imagine that the member does not want us to pay out those costs. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am not allowed to refer to the bluff and bluster of the Minister but my question was quite specific. I was asking her whether she had some concerns. We have had this report prepared. We have had this data. It is saying that there has been a very small increase in productivity compared with the increase in amount. The health service is going backwards. I asked the Minister whether she had any concerns. There is no way she addressed that. I know I am not allowed to say that it is all bluff and bluster but that is what that answer was. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member said it twice and he is now trifling with me. The Minister did address the question. 
Heather Roy 
: How can the Minister deny that the ongoing decline in hospital productivity will only get worse given that hospitals now have to face the costs of pay parity the move to national awards and the millions of dollars in costs added by the Holidays Act? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I find it very hard to find how an increase becomes a decrease. The Treasury report that the member used as the basis of her question said there was an increase. On the basis of that in the question she has just asked she said there was a decrease in terms of pay parity in terms of nurses’ salary increases. Obviously the Government has to pay for it. 
Heather Roy 
: What responsibility will the Minister take for the fact that hospital productivity—not output—has dropped for more than 2 years running the number of people dying while waiting for surgery has increased from 850 to 1187 in that time and nearly 1500 people have been waiting for surgery for 2 years or more on her hidden Active Review waiting list? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I would caution the member on the figures that she is using. Today she has constantly said that people are dying on the waiting list and has quoted figures. If that is a valid figure why does the member not quote this figure which is on the same piece of paper that she constantly uses: there were 68000 electively treated people in 2001; the figure is now 114905. As that is a valid figure why is the member not trumpeting it? It shows a huge increase in what is being done electively. The reason that she is not doing so is she does not like good figures; she wants to trumpet old and bad figures that actually do not relate to the reality at all. 
Heather Roy 
: I seek leave to table three documents. The first is the Treasury report on district health board performance in the year ended June 2004. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Heather Roy 
: The second document is some figures from the New Zealand Health Information Service—the ones that the Minister was just talking about. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Heather Roy 
: The third is a media report from the  
Dominion Post  
dated 11 April 2003 showing that Government funding increases have not matched rises in productivity. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that article. Is there any objection? There is.