Monday 9 February 2015: The changing face of Canterbury It’s coming up to four years since the February 22nd quake, and in one sense the time has flown by, yet in other ways the time has dragged on as many are still battling to get resolution on insurance claims and quake repairs. Whole areas of the red zone are now empty and people have dispersed throughout Canterbury – many of you have moved to areas around Rolleston and Lincoln and in North Canterbury areas like Rangiora are seeing a boom in population growth. We’ve also welcomed new people to Canterbury – there’s the rebuild population- many of whom have travelled from overseas live in Canterbury and work on the rebuild projects. There’s also the FIFOs – they’re the people who Fly In and Fly Out on a weekly or monthly basis – all of these additional people – estimated to be around 25,000 by mid 2015 - need health services. Some more than others. Stats indicate that the 25-29 year old population has increased by 9%, but emergency department use has grown by 46% post-quake; and the 20-24 year old population has increased by 4.2%, but ED use by this group has grown by 27% post-quake. Canterbury DHB is closely monitoring demand for mental health services and we are experiencing unprecedented increases. A 30% increase in adults, more than 50% increase in child and youth, and a 37% in emergency mental health presentations. These increases are not being experienced by other DHBs and are unique to Canterbury. The latest figures from many data sources including our local PHO data and employment stats from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) explain, in part, why we are experiencing both increased and changing demand for a range of health services. The way the Canterbury Health System has continued to deliver more for less, and save patients time through developing lean processes has been simply outstanding. Thank you. We still have significant quake repairs taking place at our hospitals, massive facility redevelopment projects underway, and we still need to meet the health needs of our communities while we function in a very constrained environment - both physically and fiscally. While it is still hard for many to grasp the ongoing impacts of the quakes on the wellness of our population, these after-effects are going to be with us for many years.
Living within our means We need to continue to be very focused and disciplined in the way we use our resources and the costs we incur and always balancing what’s best for the patient with what’s best for our system so we can continue to deliver care to our population. We need to ensure the best use of health dollars to deliver services to our communities. It is critical that we continue to focus on reducing and removing wastage from across and within the Canterbury Health System. We have been remarkably successful with this over the past few years and are going to need to be even more successful now. We are a big organisation receiving $1.4bn a year in health funding – we need to keep up the momentum with service enhancements. Small improvements collectively have big impacts on our health system.
Doing the basics well and doing the right thing for those receiving treatment and care 1. Prioritising resources to meet demand and deliver maximum health benefits 2. Remove variation, waste and duplication - standardise 3. Improve quality and patient safety – “No waste, no wait, no harm” 4. Production planning – make sure we use precious health resources in the most effective way 5. Focus expenditure on the areas that are essential – remember that we can only spend a dollar once and every time we waste precious resources, it limits our ability to continue to make our health system even better. Continues on the following page...