Reorganisation of Pathology Services

16 February 2015

Institute Announcement

The New Zealand Institute of Medical Laboratory Science expresses concern at the withdrawal of Aotea Pathology’s bid for Wellington Regional Pathology contract The executive of the New Zealand Institute of Medical Laboratory Science were disappointed to hear of the announcement on Tuesday, 2nd February 2015 by Abano Healthcare Group that Aotea Pathology has withdrawn from the current RFP process to provide pathology services for the lower North Island.

Abano in their press release stated …”our conclusion was that the proposed terms of contract in its current form would not be in the interests of our clinicians and staff at Aotea or Abano’s shareholders and it could well place the existing pathology services and the region’s communities at considerable risk. Our decision to withdraw was not taken lightly. We believe that the current process would result in an outcome that was clinically unsound and financially unsustainable and with all risk being transferred to the provider”.

Aotea Pathology is a subsidiary of Abano Healthcare group and provides community pathology services to the greater Wellington region, employing experienced and highly skilled medical laboratory scientists and technicians, anatomical and clinical pathologists.

Their current contract ends on 31st October 2015 and if unable to successfully renew an agreement, they will exit the Wellington healthcare community and close the laboratory.

With the uncertain future of 250 highly skilled and experienced scientists, technicians and pathologists, the NZIMLS calls upon the combined DHB’s to reconsider their proposal for the reorganisation and provision of pathology in the Wellington region and work towards a more sustainable outcome to the benefit of all stakeholders, especially the community they serve.

Reorganisation of Pathology Services

The basis for the proposed privatisation of hospital laboratories by the 3 DHB’s was outlined in the paper, Laboratory Services Strategy: Report of the sub-regional laboratory working group 28 August 2013, available at http://www.ccdhb.org.nz/.

While the Laboratory Services Strategy indicated that current laboratory services in the region were generally working well and required only some ‘fine tuning’, the DHB’s decided to reorganise the pathology services into an integrated service across hospital and community based laboratories to manage “on-going financial challenges” .

However, any procurement process that leads to an increased concentration within any market reduces effective competition, loss of institutional knowledge and if poorly managed, costs could be higher in the long term, with fewer choices and reduced quality.

It is clear from information tabled in the Laboratory Services Strategy, there are major deficiencies and under investment in the way information is consolidated and shared within the Wellington region. The most pressing need identified in the report was for the ability of clinicians to access pathology results and information during patient consultation, a service already provided by most other DHB’s throughout New Zealand.

All the other issues identified in the report are common to pathology and healthcare generally and should be approached by less radical means and not one designed to disrupt what is already a wellrun and maintained pathology service (as already agreed in the report) over a number of public and private providers.

Pathology is in the business of providing information for the management, monitoring and diagnosis of illness, 70% of clinical decision making depends on the work of laboratories. Investment in pathology laboratories, their processes, technology and staff should not be subject to short term fixes, RFP’s or strategies designed to save money as long term consequences to a population’s health by under investment in pathology will cost more in chronic illness and greater dependency on more expensive secondary and tertiary health services.

In summary, the NZIMLS is asking the combined DHB’s to

•suspend the current regional RFP process and

•initiate an independent review of the clinical risks, leadership, tangible outcomes and assumptions made in the report and publish those

•to seek public and clinical consultation before proceeding further and

•explore alternative approaches to the two options tabled in the Sept 2014 document.

Signed
Executive NZIMLS
Ross Hewett
President

www.nzimls.org.nz

© Scoop Media