National Services chosen

Media Release
November 22 2010

National Services chosen

The National Health Board (NHB) has chosen five vulnerable services to become national services in the next financial year.

The services are Clinical Genetics, Paediatric Pathology, Paediatric Metabolic Services, Paediatric Cardiology and Paediatric Cardiac Surgery.

These services will be planned and funded centrally by the NHB instead of by individual District Health Boards.

“We chose these services because their small size, retaining specialists or critical mass issues, make them vulnerable if they are not funded, planned and managed in a co-ordinated way,” NHB Board member Dr Jeff Brown said.

“We want to make sure that children and their families continue to have access to services of the highest quality. These services will continue to be delivered by DHBs, but will be centrally led by the National Health Board, supported by clinical leaders.”

A second set of services has been chosen as National Service Improvement Programmes.

These programmes are Cardiac Surgery, Paediatric Oncology, Paediatric Gastroenterology, Neurosurgery and Major Trauma.

“These services will undergo nationally coordinated planning and performance
improvement activities, but will still be funded by DHBs.

“Key to these national services, and national service improvement programmes, will be the establishment or fine tuning of national clinical networks, to support the planning and operation of these services,” Dr Brown said.

Ends

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