The public sector is being told to tighten up its act when releasing data following a tough few weeks for Te Whatu Ora.
It comes after weeks of issues at the organisation, which saw it release numbers that showed emergency department wait times as being much shorter than they actually were.
When looking at December numbers, it appeared Northland’s ED was seeing nearly all patients within six hours; the reality was much less, with long wait times.
But in other areas, like the West Coast, wait times seemed to be getting worse, which was also wrong; they’re getting better.
“Well, they were clearly wrong, you had some districts like Northland, which had a dramatic improvement in waiting time, and you had some other districts where you had very few numbers jumping to thousands,” Rural GP Dr Kyle Eggleton said.
Today, while the Prime Minister waited to join the Kumeu A&P show tractor parade, he offered Te Whatu Ora and the rest of the public sector a stern message.
“Clearly, they need to sharpen up their act when it comes to data issues,” Hipkins said.
“I think the last few weeks have been a wake-up call to all government agencies that they need to be really vigilant when it comes to releasing data, and they need to make sure they are getting it right.”
National’s health spokesperson Dr Shane Reti had similar thoughts.
“How is that possible? How could that possibly be put into the public domain,” he said.
Te Whatu Ora apologised for the blunder. However, it wouldn't be the last of their problems.
In a monthly newsletter the organisation spends thousands on, they featured a glowing article on Health Minister Ayesha Verrall, who ordered it to be binned.
Hipkins called the newsletter “an error of judgement”.
It also comes after the minister fired Te Whatu Ora chairperson Rob Campbell for his vocal opinions on National’s Three Waters policy.
While all the drama goes down, frontline workers face the same old pressures of staffing, delays and resources.
“I think the public would be thinking 'what's going on?' Certainly, us, in the health system, know there are issues,” Eggleton said.
Reti says the issues exist because the government is doing too much.
“The health reforms are massive; anything of this size is going to have teething problems; the health reforms need to stop,” Reti said.
Hipkins says these issues are why reform is needed.
“I'm not happy with the health system; I don't think anyone is happy with the health system; that's why we have these reforms,” he said.
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