North in middle of health league table, aims to do better

by Mike Dinsdale | 24th November 2009

That's the gist of a new report assessing the Northland District Health Board performance over a range of targets for the first national health performance league.

Yesterday, for the first time, the Government released a list of health targets and how each of the country's 21 district health boards (DHBs) performed against them. Northland was ranked 12th - about the middle of the field in comparison to other  boards.

Northland DHB general manager of clinical services Nick Chamberlain welcomed the tables, saying they would give the public an indication of how hard DHBs were working to improve health outcomes.

Dr Chamberlain said that, while Northland DHB was average in the rankings, its performance was pretty good once other factors - such as Northland's high Maori population and large geographical area - were taken into account.

The board's worst performing area on the tables was in immunisation, which showed only 73 per cent of  2-year-olds fully immunised - 19th nationally.

 Dr Chamberlain said those figures were taken from a national database and the DHB's own figures showed it was actually 88 per cent, which would have the DHB ranked joint fifth.

The health board was joint first in the country for shorter waiting times for radiotherapy cancer treatment, treating 100 per cent within the allocated timeframe, along with 18 other DHBs.

The DHB was eighth in the area of improved access to elective surgery; 12th in shorter stays in emergency departments; joint 14th in better diabetes and cardiovascular services; and 15th for providing better help for smokers to quit.

Dr Chamberlain said overall he was fairly happy with the results and was confident the tables would show significant improvement next quarter as the data provided to the national database improved.

"We are not doing too bad, given the status of our population and the region," he said.

"We are one of the most deprived regions in the country and have roughly 30 per cent Maori, while the geography means it takes five hours to drive from one end of the region to the other." 

 Maori traditionally have worse health statistics than non-Maori, while Northland has the highest smoking rates in the country.

 View DHB ratings on
 www.moh.govt.nz/healthtargets