Media release from South Canterbury

The first year of performance against the Minister' Health Targets has seen an overall improvement in most areas for South Canterbury DHB.

Chief Executive Chris Fleming says he is pleased with the results in Emergency Department stays, elective surgery performance, help for smokers to quit and cardiovascular/diabetes services, which have all improved over the past year. The immunization health target result has stayed at about the same level, but the number of patients waiting longer than six weeks for radiotherapy treatment in Christchurch remains a concern.

He makes the following comments on each health target. The results of all four quarters in the 2009/10 year are provided:

Shorter Waits for Cancer Treatment

Q1 100%, Q2 100%, Q3 96%, Q4 89% of patients needing radiation treatment had this within six weeks of their first specialist assessment.

"Radiation treatment is provided to South Canterbury patients by the regional oncology centre in Christchurch. It is disappointing to see the result in the fourth quarter. This is what happened:

31 South Canterbury patients started cancer radiation treatment within six weeks as required.
2 patients were delayed due to capacity restraints in Christchurch.
1 patient was delayed while waiting for other medical investigations to be carried out.
Because of the relatively small number of cancer patients in South Canterbury, one patient will make a big difference to the percentages. Capacity restraint issues in Christchurch are being addressed by the installation of a fourth linear accelerator, which was approved by the Regional Capital Committee last week. We will continue to monitor this waiting time on behalf of South Canterbury patients and hope to see improvements in the coming year."

Shorter Stays in Emergency Departments

Q1 95%, Q2 96%, Q3 96%, Q4 97% of patients were admitted, discharged or transferred from the Emergency Department within six hours.
"The purpose of this target is not to rush people through the Emergency Department, but to minimise unnecessary waits. Timaru Hospital has ended the year with the great result of 97 percent of patients through the Emergency Department within six hours. This is a credit both to ED staff and the district's general practitioners who have worked together to make sure patients are treated in the right place at the right time."

Improved Access to Elective Surgery

Q1 95%, Q2 98%, Q3 96%, Q4 101% of agreed elective surgeries were provided to patients.

"This target measures how close South Canterbury DHB is to delivering the amount of elective surgery it has agreed to perform. The quarter four result at 101 percent shows that we performed one percent more surgery than we planned for. The Minister's expectation is that we reach 100 percent by the end of the year.  The target of 100% for each District Health Board is not equal.  South Canterbury's elective surgery targets are set at a much higher level than most DHBs because we have traditionally been able to provide higher levels of elective surgery to our population.  Ranking DHBs on a 1 to 20 scale is therefore not really meaningful, as they are all measured against a different level of expectation.  We are pleased that we have been able to exceed our target, which benefits the people of South Canterbury."

Increased Immunisation

Q1 94%, Q2 89%, Q3 91%, Q4 91% of two-year-olds were fully immunized.

"South Canterbury DHB continues to do well in childhood immunization rates thanks to a dedicated group of health professionals who work in this area. Due to our small population size, the percentages are affected by one or two children not being immunized on time, and this is reflected in the results."

Better Help for Smokers to Quit

Q1 10%, Q2 17%, Q3 38%, Q4 75% of hospitalized smokers were provided with advice and help to quit.
"This result has sky rocketed up over the past year. It means that smokers who end up in hospital are given the support and advice they need to quit if they want to. There has been a huge effort from all staff at Timaru Hospital to make this happen and the credit belongs to them."


Better Diabetes and Cardiovascular Services

Q1 67%, Q2 65%, Q3 69%, Q4 69% of diabetes patients had good management of their disease, and an increasing percentage of eligible adults had their cardiovascular disease risk assessed.

"Good diabetes management in primary care is helping us keep in the top half of DHBs with this target. Primary and Community Services will be working with general practices to improve this result further."

Quarter Four results are attached. Quarter One, Two and Three are available on our website.