Media information
For immediate release
Date: July 18, 2008
Thames Hospital's Two-Year Thumbs Up
Months of hard work by staff has resulted in Thames Hospital getting the tick of approval from the Ministry of Health
for a further two years.
All New Zealand hospitals are regularly put to the test to ensure the safe delivery of healthcare through a stringent
certification process.
Thames Hospital received a further two years' certification for providing medical, maternity and surgical services to
local residents, last week.
The accolade comes from the director-general of health Stephen McKernan.
Health Waikato chief operating officer Jan Adams said Thames manager Jacquie Mitchell and her staff should be very proud
of this achievement, considering the disruption of major campus redevelopments they have had to contend with during the
past two years.
"It is a pleasure for me and my staff to be able to provide high standards of care to the local communities," said Mrs
Mitchell.
"We know the services delivered at this hospital are something to be proud of, but it is always nice to have that
formally recognised by the certification process. We are over the moon with this result."
Thames Hospital's certification took effect on Friday, July 11 and remains until July 11, 2010.
During that time, there are certain conditions for hospital management to meet, including three progress reports by the
end of the year and a surveillance visit next year.
The certification process is a standard requirement set by the Ministry of Health under the Health and Disability
Services (Safety) Act 2001.
Its purpose is to:
* promote the safe provision of health and disability services to the public
* enable the establishment of consistent and reasonable standards for providing health and disability services to
the public safely
* encourage providers of health and disability services to take responsibility for providing those services to the
public safely; and
* encourage providers of health and disability services to continuously improve the quality of those services.
The Thames Hospital redevelopment project comes to an end this year, with the impending openings of the Thames Clinical
Centre in September and Inpatient Centre in December.
To access a high resolution image of Jacquie Mitchell, visit
http://www.waikatodhb.govt.nz/photogallery.aspx?category=1176
ENDS