Government data on patient referrals falls short

Government data on patient referrals falls short of what’s needed

“The information on patient referrals released by the Government needs to be seen for what it is: a partial snapshot that falls seriously short of what we need to know about access to health care in this country,” says Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS).

He was commenting on the Government’s release of information from its National Patient Flow project: https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/specialist-referral-outcomes-dhb and http://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/media-releases/first-data-new-national-collection.

“It’s interesting to know how many people are being referred for specialist treatment but these figures don’t really tell us whether New Zealanders are getting the healthcare they need from the public health system.

“For example, we don’t know the number of people who need healthcare but can’t afford to visit their GP, or the number of people who don’t get referred to a specialist because their GP knows that under the current scoring process, there’s no point.”

Mr Powell added that we also don’t know how many patients assessed by a specialist as requiring surgery are placed on what are sometimes called separate ‘suspended lists’ in order to ensure that a DHB is not penalised for failing to meet their maximum waiting time target.

Christchurch surgeon and Chair of the Canterbury Charity Hospital Trust, Phil Bagshaw, describes the National Patient Flow project as “smoke and mirrors”, hiding the fact that the level of unmet need for elective surgery is growing.

“The number of recorded patient referrals to hospitals is an irrelevant statistic,” he says. “Many people needing treatment cannot afford to go to a GP and many DHBs have ‘health pathways’ which tell GPs not to refer patients for some surgical procedures because they don’t treat them anymore.

“Furthermore, a 26% increase in First Specialist Assessment over six years is not good at all. If I were the Minister of Health, I would keep that quiet!”

ENDS

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