King Annette: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 10 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9205. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]5.Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) to theMinister of Health: Does he stand by his statement that the Government will not agree to anything that “doesn’t improve patient services”?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health): Yes within the context of that statement made 4 years ago referring to the high-level recommendations of the ministerial review group. I also stand by my statement that despite millions of dollars of extra funding some programmes may be slowed changed or stopped. An example of this is Fruit in Schools where we have stopped millions of dollars being spent on administration and we are now providing more fruit to schoolkids for less cost.Hon Annette King: If quality is important to him did he agree to the proposal from Health Benefits Ltd which he set up in 2010 to close all public hospital kitchens and have TV-style reheated dinners fed to sick patients prepared only in Auckland and Christchurch and then transported hundreds of kilometres around New Zealand?Hon TONY RYALL: Yes I am aware of that from a media report today. What I can say to the member is that Health Benefits Ltd is working on a business case to try to save money and any money that is saved in changes to kitchen services will be reinvested back into the New Zealand public health service.Hon Annette King: Is he aware that the preferred provider of these budget airline-style meals for sick New Zealanders in our public hospitals is the Compass Group a UK multinational company which recently found horse meat in its dinners; if so how does he intend to measure the quality of the food provided by it in New Zealand? [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order! I am interested in the answer.Hon TONY RYALL: I have yet to receive a formal proposition from Health Benefits Ltd for this. I can tell the member that as she knows a large number of hospital kitchens even when she was Minister of Health were contracted out to the private sector. It has a long history of involvement in hospital kitchens and I can assure the member that before any district health board and Health Benefits were to proceed with this they would want to assure themselves as to the quality of the hospital food and the standard of food that is being provided to New Zealand patients. What I can assure the member of is that every dollar saved through more effective back-office services will be reinvested in front-line services for New Zealand patients like more operations and more care for New Zealanders.Darien Fenton: Has he considered the impact this will have on the 1300 or so low-income workers and their families who work in hospital food services throughout New Zealand?Hon TONY RYALL: I am absolutely certain that the interests of those people are being considered in these decisions. Many of those 1300 people are employed by private contractors now—many of our hospital food staff. So this is what they are looking at. I have to say that in tight financial times I welcome smart ideas that can save on back-office administrative costs so that we can put that money into front-line services. But members can be assured that quality and I hope improvement of hospital food in some parts of the country are a major consideration in this.Darien Fenton: Will he be prepared to front up to hospital food staff in his electorate in every town in the country throughout New Zealand to tell them that they are back-office staff and deserve to be laid off en masse?Hon TONY RYALL: I think the member is getting way ahead of herself. Health Benefits Ltd is preparing a business case to take to the district health boards and see what we can do. The key thing here is that I would have thought the Opposition wouldwant the money that we have in health spent in the most efficient way possible. That is why so many services were contracted out when Annette King was Minister of Health. We want the money being spent the most effective way maintaining quality with any savings going back into more services for patients.