MEDIA RELEASE
ATTENTION: HEALTH REPORTERS
CDHB Medical Records Not Accurate Despite Commitment
“The Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) has a backlog going back 18 months of filing pathology (ie blood tests)
into individual case notes despite promising at an inquest into the death of a kidney transplant patient in March that
the system would be fixed,” Eleanor Carter Spokesperson of Health Cuts Hurt said today.
“The Board promised that recommendations involving new medical records procedures would prevent the error which failed
to place information from blood tests before clinicians and led to the death which the Board apologised for at an
inquest in May.”
“Yet six months after the death, there are currently test results going back 18 months still needing to go into
individual clinical records,” said Eleanor Carter. “The results are currently in folders in the Clinical Records
Department but not in people’s records.”
“The ongoing risk is that a clinician may open up case notes and be unable to find the results from a specific blood
test yet have to make a decision on what to do,” said Eleanor Carter.
“The reason for the backlog is Government budget cuts when Population Based Funding was introduced. Local management
decided the filing of blood test results was not a critical operation during reviews and cuts to staffing over the last
two years - and could be caught up later,” said Eleanor Carter. “This demonstrates that Health Cuts can kill.”
ENDS