Media release from Southland and Otago District Health Boards

"The Southland and Otago District Health Boards (DHBs) are confident their preparations for the merger are largely complete and the changeover to the Southern DHB on the 1 May 2010 will run smoothly," according to the DHBs' Regional Chief Executive Officer (CEO)  Brian Rousseau.

"I am pleased to report with just under a fortnight until the Southern DHB comes into being most of the technical work and plans relating to the merger have been accomplished," said Mr Rousseau.

Mr Rousseau noted transitional work for the merger progressed extremely well due to the collaborative work that had been completed by Otago and Southland DHBs since the formation of the Southern Alliance in February 2007.

"We had already completed the alignment of various organisation systems and had created regional administration support teams such as finance, human resources, IT, procurement and planning and funding.

"Now that we have completed the final steps, we are ready to become one organisation with one Governance structure overseeing us."

Whilst on 1 May the District Health Boards will merge to form one organisation (the Southern DHB) with one Board responsible for its governance, there are currently no changes to health care service delivery in Otago and Southland.

"Patients will continue to receive services as they always have and referrals processes to local services should not alter," said Mr Rousseau.  

"We are progressing a regional clinical services network across Southland and Otago, which will eventually lead to clinical services being shared across Otago and Southland."

"This work includes the restructure of the two current provider arms into a single organisation unit to support this regional network."

Governance Arrangements

The Southern DHB Board will consist of all elected and appointed members of both the Otago DHB and Southland DHB Boards until elections that will coincide with the local body elections towards the end of this year.

Leadership arrangements for the Board were confirmed last month with Errol Millar, the current Otago DHB Chairman, being appointed by the Minister as Chairman of the Southern DHB and Paul Menzies, currently the Southland DHB Chairman, as deputy.

The inaugural meeting of the Southern DHB will be held in Invercargill at 12.30pm on Thursday, 6 May, in the Board Room, Old Nurses' Home, Southland Hospital Campus.

Mr Millar said  practical issues such as membership to the Board's various advisory committees, meeting schedules and the finalisation of official Board documents such as standing orders and committee terms of reference are still to be confirmed and will be the subject of a Board workshop on Wednesday, 5 May.

New Southern DHB Website

The website address for the Southern DHB will be www.southerndhb.govt.nz.  This is due to go live on 1 May 2010 and will be the port of call for up to date information, news and documents for consumers, patients, providers and the public. The former Otago and Southland DHBs' websites www.otagodhb.govt.nz and www.sdhb.govt.nz will also automatically redirect you to the new site.

Arrangements for Contacting the Southern DHB

If your usual business is with a particular hospital, service or individual at either the current Southland Hospital or Dunedin Hospital then the contact address and details will remain the same, until you are otherwise notified.  The respective addresses are:

Southland Hospital                                 Dunedin Hospital

PO Box 828                                           Private Bag 1921

Invercargill 9840                                    Dunedin 9054

For any correspondence to the Board, the Board Chairperson, the Chief Executive Officer and Planning and Funding of the Southern DHB the mailing address is:

Southern District Health Board

Private Bag 1921

Dunedin 9054

Invoices

For organisations, such as Non Government Organisations (NGOs) who hold a contract with the DHB through the Ministry of Health, Sector Services there are no changes to the previous claims process.  Continue to use the "HealthPac" invoice headers as usual.

For all other invoicing purposes - from 1 May 2010 please address all invoices to:

Southern District Health Board

Private Bag 1970

Dunedin 9054

Contacting a staff member or service by email:

The primary email for all staff will be firstname.lastname@southerndhb.govt.nz .However any email sent to an older address will still reach the recipient, provided the person is still a staff member of the DHB.