Paul Hutchison MP National Party Health Spokesman

05 July 2005

OECD highlights Labour's health sector failings

National Party Health spokesman Paul Hutchison says the latest OECD report proves Labour has no idea how to run an efficient health system.

The report says:

"Although it has long been generally assumed that an expansion of inputs would directly feed into a rise in output (or equivalently, the labour intensity of many public services make productivity gains virtually impossible to achieve), it is now increasingly obvious that this assumption is false."

"Given repeated Treasury warnings of productivity problems in the health sector, and Michael Cullen's admission that health spending is unsustainable, it is appalling that Labour continues to throw huge amounts of untargeted funds at the sector without robust output measures," says Dr Hutchison.

The report also says: "The current weak state of information raises doubts about whether DHBs and other providers are set sufficiently clear expectations about making productivity improvements and face strong enough incentives to improve their performance. Current monitoring emphasises financial performance (which is of course important), rather than efficient and effective service delivery."

"The OECD report makes it clear that the health system under Labour is not measuring productivity properly. There has been a huge increase in terms of dollars, but virtually nothing to show for it.

"National will bring efficiency back into the health system," says Dr Hutchison.

ENDS

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