Te Whatu Ora says said there are many variables to whether a hospital department had safe staffing. File photo. Photo: befunky.com
Te Whatu Ora has been unable to say which parts of the hospital system are safely staffed, despite saying that was a critical factor in its decision to cut costs.
The organisation issued cost-saving instructions in April, including an end to double shifts and back-filling sick leave, and an order for more staff to take annual leave.
In an interview with Checkpoint that month, Te Whatu Ora/Health NZ chief executive Margie Apa said the measures would be applied in departments that were safely staffed, but when asked where those areas were, she said she did not have the information in front of her.
She also said she did not know how many hospitals were operating within their budget.
RNZ followed up to ask for the information. It took two months for Te Whatu Ora to provide a response.
That response did not say how many areas were safely staffed, instead saying 86 percent of patient clinical areas were using a formal process (Care Capacity Demand Management) to measure safe staffing.
It did not provide any of the data but said using the process "is a proxy for safe staffing."
Nurses Organisation chief executive Paul Goulter said that was a massive leap of logic.
"Just because you have a methodology, and that methodology is being applied, doesn't actually meant that you've got sufficient number of nurses working on the wards," he said.
"You can keep measuring anything as long as you like but it doesn't actually create any change unless you are prepared to invest in filling the gaps that the methodology has revealed."
Te Whatu Ora's response said there were many variables to whether a department had safe staffing.
"Safe staffing is a constant balance of sufficient staff, correct skill mix and levels of clinical demand on this staffing; a clinical demand that can fluctuate significantly at any time.
"The question is very difficult to answer at any one time as every day, there is a constantly changing situation," its response said.
The union had done its own analysis based on 2023 Te Whatu Ora data that found a quarter of all nursing shifts were below target staffing numbers, and many worked at unsafe levels all the time.
Now, many departments had better nursing numbers than last year, but there was still an estimated shortage of 2500.
Goulter said all the cost-cutting measures, including a subsequent hiring freeze, was having a big impact on nurses.
"What they're facing, increasingly due to these budget cutbacks is shortages of resources on the frontline."
When RNZ followed up to ask Te Whatu Ora for the information Apa did not have during the Checkpoint interview, it said that could not be answered straight away.
It opted to put the questions through its formal Official Information Act process. Then it said an extension was required, delivering the information two months later.