Mr Fleming made the comment - a rare criticism of the ministry from the SDHB - to the Otago Daily Times yesterday.
The board lost $5.66 million from its promised 2017-18 allocation. It was part of $38 million wrongly allocated to boards in the Budget when officials incorrectly applied the population-based funding formula.
At first, the country’s top health official, director-general Chai Chuah, reassured the SDHB and other boards that they could keep it. The plan was for the SDHB to pay it back over three years, starting next year, Mr Fleming said. Then the plan abruptly changed, he said. The board would not get the money.
"A solution was put in place and we all acted in good faith on that solution. Two weeks later we suddenly get the carpet pulled out from under our feet.
"I’m disappointed that we can’t rely on the assurances we were given.
"It’s hard enough trying to lead an organisation when you get one piece of news and then it’s changed overnight," Mr Fleming said.
The board would need to change its planned spending as a result. He could not give specifics, as final decisions had not yet been made.
It would only affect new initiatives — but they were typically devised to make existing services cope better with demands.
One example is a planned new medical assessment unit at Dunedin Hospital to speed patients through the admissions process.
The unit would still go ahead, but "there’s further that we can go, so it may slow down some of the initiatives". It would affect plans to improve links between hospitals and GPs.
"We’re going to develop a primary community strategy and action plan but having some extra resources available to us to fast-track some of the actions that will come out of that will be jeopardised.
"We’re still getting around an extra $26 million, but what we thought was we’re going to be getting an extra $31 million."
Also, unlike previous years, the board did not get several months’ notice of its funding allocation, and received the figure only last month in the Budget.
Mr Fleming said the longer planning time within the ministry made the error more surprising.
The initial amount was more generous than expected, which "built up expectations".
He was reluctant to be drawn on recent reports of tensions between the ministry and health boards - "There are tensions and there always will be."
Labour health spokesman David Clark said the blunder had left many health boards with less money than initially promised.
"[Jonathan Coleman] might keep saying it’s a technical error but the reality is that 14 district health boards are having to make changes to what they can fund with less money than they thought they had on Budget day.
"The minister flails about insisting that funding is keeping up with population growth, ignoring his own ministry’s calculation which is based on demographic changes - the cost to health of a growing, elderly population," Mr Clark said.
Health Minister Jonathan Coleman told RNZ yesterday the ministry made a "very public error" and was correcting it.
He played down its importance.
"The big picture is we are producing more of every service across the country and that’s what the public cares about rather than spreadsheet errors.
"Every DHB is getting more [money] than last year," Dr Coleman said.
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"Spreadsheet errors" - seriously?! It's much, much more than that in reality. What a ludicrous way to express a very serious mistake that will have a big impact on health services. Message to Minister: people don't like being patronised in this way. Trying to minimise the stuff-up only makes it worse.