Health NZ releases five further change decisions

Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora has today released change decisions for five teams:

• Hauora Māori Services

• Pacific Health

• Procurement, Supply Chain and Health Technology Management (PSC&HTM)

• Planning, Funding and Outcomes (PFO - just the former Service Improvement & Innovation teams)

• Audit, Assurance & Risk

The changes announced today are part of Health NZ’s ongoing effort to moving toward a sustainable future for New Zealand healthcare and ensure our resources and people are organised in the best way to support care being delivered closer to the patient.

I want to thank all of our staff for their engagement and feedback during this period of change consultation. The input is thoughtful and valued and, in many cases, resulted in changes to the original proposals.

Implementation of the final decisions for Hauora Māori Services, Audit, Assurance & Risk and Pacific Health will begin straight away.

For the Planning, Funding and Outcomes and Procurement and Supply Chain services, the changes cannot be implemented immediately due to ongoing PSA legal action. Notwithstanding this legal action, we decided to release these decisions out of concern for the length of time our staff have been waiting for these change processes to conclude.

Some staff have been waiting since last year and with consultations finished in February, we felt it was fairer to all staff to release the decisions now, to give people greater clarity over what our thinking is and what it might mean for them. We will continue to work with the PSA to try and resolve the legal proceedings during the coming weeks.

For all five services, senior leaders are meeting with their teams and impacted individuals today to talk through the decisions and any next steps.

We appreciate these are difficult times for those concerned and a range of support is available.

Health NZ continues to work through change processes for other business units and will remain engaged with our staff and unions as we do that.