Over-centralised Health Service In Need of Urgent Care

Commenting on a series of information releases under the OIA which reveal that Te Whatu Ora is failing to address the Planned Care Taskforce's recommendations for improvement made last October, Taxpayers’ Union Policy Adviser, James Ross, said:

“Since the District Health Boards were disbanded by this Labour Government, New Zealand has had one of the most centralised health systems in the world. It’s no coincidence that at the same time as local control over healthcare has been stripped away, outcomes have worsened and plans to improve healthcare in regional areas have fallen by the wayside.

“The Ministerial Advisory Committee was established last year with just one job – drag the behemoths that are our two health systems up to standard. The Committee’s inability to break through Te Whatu Ora’s closed-shop bureaucracy demonstrates that this Government has created a beast that even they can’t control.

“Much like with Te Pūkenga’s inability to provide quality education, the results of this government’s love affair with central control are clear. Over-centralisation does not work, and key services are plummeting across the board as a result. Before wrenching control of water infrastructure and resource management away from local bodies, Labour need to stop and look at the evidence in front of their eyes.

“Serious reform across the public sector is needed to bring services back up to snuff, but removing local accountability is empirically making things worse, not better.”