Wall LouisaHealth SectorLOUISA WALL (Chairperson of the Health Committee): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Thank you for the privilege of speaking at this debate about the annual review of the Health sector and I do so as the chair of the Health Committee. Can I firstly acknowledge my deputy chair Dr Shane Reti—and I want to put on record that I find him an incredibly good person to work with. I think that the committee itself is incredibly collegial. Can I also take this opportunity to say haere rā to Dr Jonathan Coleman and wish him all the best in his future endeavours.So the annual review that we undertook included the Health Quality and Safety Commission the New Zealand Blood Service and the following district health boards (DHBs): Auckland DHB Counties Manukau DHB Waitematā DHB Bay of Plenty DHB Capital and Coast DHB Canterbury DHB Southern DHB South Canterbury DHB Hawke's Bay DHB and MidCentral DHB.Can I say our selection of those particular DHBs was based on those that we hadn't seen for a while and it also included actually a three-year plan that we have before the Health Committee to review all of our 20 DHBs in this term. I want to say that I think that's an incredibly positive thing for us to have already agreed on.I do want to highlight some of the issues from these reviews in particular the Health Quality and Safety Commission. I want to note that under the ACC claims for medical injury subsection in our report back to the House there was an issue about surgical mesh. The Health Quality and Safety Commission in fact spent a lot of time talking about surgical mesh. What they highlighted and what we've highlighted in our report—and I just want to quote from the report: We asked whether the commission is satisfied that it has access to the information it needs from ACC to support its work in improving health outcomes. The commission said it would like easier access to the information it needs." So from our perspective it has highlighted an access to information issue between the Health Quality and Safety Commission and ACC and in fact we will write to that effect to both Ministers and provide a copy of our report because we think it's a significant issue.I would also like to highlight in the New Zealand Blood Service report that in fact we've had a 10 percent decrease in active donors between—where are we?—2012-13 and current figures but they've maintained collection volume. So although we've had a 10 percent decrease the people who are donating are giving a lot more and I particularly want to highlight that they said that they were very pleased with donation numbers in new migrant communities so they're obviously being able to communicate how important blood is to new New Zealanders. There was an issue however about their behavioural criteria for donor referral and these are people who are considered high-risk donors—sex workers and men who have sex with other men. Currently in New Zealand we have a one-year period before somebody can donate blood. In the UK that has been reduced to three months. So we've asked that the New Zealand Blood Service report back to us about whether or not they're intending to amend that particular policy.Finally I want to focus on Counties Manukau District Health Board (DHB) Waitematā and Auckland and stress what they stressed that there was very high demand for services for acute surgical services and there has been unprecedented demand particularly in acute services. This is from their perspective a terrible situation. All of the DHBs are expecting a deficit but the horror of their situation—they didn't underestimate—was affecting staff. So the situation that staff are having to work in within our DHBs is actually putting our staff at risk. We don't have enough staff and staff are doing too much; so huge issues within our DHB sector.Finally I just want to highlight an issue before our committee and it relates to the issue of asset management planning and the fact that we as a select committee did not hear from the DHBs about the significance of the asset management planning and some of the issues that we have and particularly at Counties Manukau District Health Board. I've got a feeling that it's an issue right across all of our DHBs. Thank you."