Two Wellington PHOs to merge

Two community-based Primary Health Organisations (PHOs)
in Wellington region announce proposed merger

The Boards of the Porirua Health Plus PHO, based in Cannons Creek, and the South East and City PHO, based in Newtown and known as SECPHO, have unanimously agreed to proceed with a merger of the two organisations – subject to approval and support from the Capital and Coast District Health Board (Capital & Coast DHB).

The proposed merger follows on from the announcement in February that three other PHOs in the region will be merging (Kapiti PHO, Tumai mo te Iwi and Capital PHO), and the push for consolidation of PHOs made by Health Minister Tony Ryall in a letter to Capital & Coast DHB. With this latest merger, the number of PHOs in the Capital & Coast DHB region will now be reduced from seven to four.

“Neither SECPHO nor Porirua Health Plus PHO have made this decision to merge lightly,” said spokesperson Malcolm Robson.

“Even though they work in distinctly different communities, in standing united together their priority is to preserve the community development focus and philosophy of the respective organisations and their providers. The economies of scale to be achieved in management terms is likely to be small, but it is definitely a necessary step to achieve funding certainty”.

Justine Thorpe, SECPHO chief executive, said that over the last seven years both PHOs have been operating at the sharp end of providing frontline services for the everyday health care needs in their communities and have developed close working relationships supported by their membership of umbrella group Health Care Aotearoa.

“By merging we recognize there is an opportunity to strengthen our voice on behalf of those who need lower cost access to primary health care. Through our combined network of more than 30 community primary health and social service providers we are well positioned to provide a level of innovation and community development for Maori, Pacific, Refugee, youth and low income populations that larger, more commercial PHOs are unlikely to be as focused on”.

Ara Swanney, Porirua Health Plus PHO manager, said that in percentage terms, the PHO’s combined enrolments of 13,500 might be considered small, but “in terms of the vulnerability of these individuals and families the new PHO has a huge responsibility to maintain high quality primary healthcare that is accessible by those most in need”.

The two PHOs could be operating as a single entity under a new name from as soon as 1 July 2010. A phased approach to reconfiguring aspects of their respective operations to ensure that the same level of frontline services are offered would be taken over the following 12 months, during which time further mergers could be investigated, with Hutt Valley based PHOs for instance, to further ensure funding certainty and an alignment of PHOs with similar working philosophies and focused priorities.

ENDS

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