Despite fearing it could be wasting its time, the Wakatipu health governance reference group will continue its deliberations over a governance model for the area's health services, chairman Graeme Todd says.
At its meeting yesterday, the Queenstown Lakes District Council-appointed group considered suspending its deliberations because the National Health Board was now involved, at the request of Southern District Health Board, in finding a workable set-up for the area's health services.
An independent panel announced last week would make recommendations by the end of next month.
Mr Todd said that after a "fairly full and frank" discussion, the group decided to continue, at least until it had more information about the NHB panel.
"I, for one, put it to the group: were we wasting our time? It was resolved that we really don't know the answer to that and so we should continue working until we do know the answer."
The group had a duty to the community.
"We have accepted a job and given a commitment to the community through our consultation that we would continue to try to get that job finalised."
Mr Todd awaited the panel's terms of reference as he still did not know if the NHB's focus was solely service provision, as expected, or broader issues of governance.
Depending on the panel's scope of reference, there was little benefit having a "parallel process" which could cause confusion in the community.
If required, the group would work with the panel.
In the meantime, the group would analyse submissions on its proposal for an elected Wakatipu Community Health Board.
Submissions closed on May 30.
The group still intended tabling its proposal, late this month, to the Queenstown Lakes District Council.
Mr Todd was unable to say how many submissions were received because of technical issues which should be resolved today.
Mr Todd said the group felt frustrated at the nature of "health politics", and wondered if there were "other motivations" for the NHB's involvement over and above what had been stated.
Deputy Southern DHB chairman Paul Menzies said, while he had not seen the terms of reference and could not give any guarantees, he believed there was a valid role for the group, which had valuable links to the community.
In requesting NHB involvement, the DHB's sole motivation was settling the future of the area's health services as the issue had gone on long enough, he said.
NHB deputy director Michael Hundleby said the board planned to release the terms of reference this week.
He hoped the reference group's work could be "fed in" to the panel's deliberations.
It was likely the panel's recommendations would extend to "structure and governance" issues as well as "models of care".
