West Coast DHB health targets improve

Media release

Tuesday 26 August 2014

West Coast DHB health targets improve

The West Coast District Health Board’s fourth quarter performance against the National Health Targets has improved or equalled in all results, bar immunisations.

For the first time this year the DHB has met the 95% target to provide hospitalised smokers with cessation advice and support.

The West Coast’s figures for Shorter stays in Emergency Departments once again tops the chart for all DHBs with 100%, up from 99.6% last quarter. The target of 95% measures what proportion of patients are admitted, discharged or transferred from an emergency department within six hours.

The DHB is also exceeding its target of 1592 patients accessing elective surgery over the past year - numbers for the quarter brought the total to 1695 discharges.

And the West Coast DHB has for the fourth quarter in a row achieved the Shorter Waits for Cancer Treatment Health Target for the 2013/14 financial year, with 100% of people ready for radiotherapy or chemotherapy beginning treatment within four weeks.

David Meates, West Coast and Canterbury DHB chief executive, says the results reflect continued efforts to provide outstanding health care for the people of the West Coast.

“It’s fairly good news this quarter. While we have targets we are not yet meeting, good progress is being made in most areas.”

Immunisation numbers dropped on the third quarter results. Although only vaccinating 81% of our eligible children for the Increased Immunisation Health Target, we vaccinated 99% of consenting children. High opt-off and declines (18.4%), continue to be challenging in meeting this target.

Performance against the Better Help for Smokers attending primary care to quit improved by 6.5% from the previous quarter (and is now at 61.9%) but still has some way to go to meet the 90% target.

Eligible enrolled adult West Coasters are having more heart and diabetes checks than the previous quarter, with 76.6% compared to 69.6%. The target for the DHB is 90%.

Full information on the West Coast DHB’s Health Target performance can be found here, and information on the Ministry of Health’s Health Targets site here.

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