Full paper text [PDF 3515k] - New Zealand Parliament

1.0
Commissioner’s
Foreword
The majority of the time consumers in New Zealand
experience good care. We can be proud of the health
and disability system in New Zealand, but we can
also do better.
Over the last year I have spoken at dozens
of venues, addressed thousands of people
and read hundreds of letters from people
who have encountered the New Zealand
health and disability system.
I am encouraged each day by the passion
demonstrated by New Zealand’s health
and disability service providers, and their
commitment to delivering safe and high
quality services.
The HDC is a champion of consumers’
rights, and our mission is to resolve
consumer complaints, protect consumer
rights, and to encourage providers to
learn from complaints to improve the
quality of the services they deliver. My
vision for health and disability services
in New Zealand is a consumer-centred
system; a system that is built on the
concepts of seamless service, engagement,
transparency, and an empowering culture.
By seamless service I mean the services –
people and systems – wrapped around a
consumer are appropriately connected and
communicating. It is about the woman
with a history of breast cancer who
presented to hospital with a sudden onset
of back pain with no trauma, whose care
was not adequately coordinated between
the different services providing care to
her, resulting in missed opportunities to
diagnose her metastatic bone disease.
By engagement I mean engaging
consumers by respecting, informing,
involving, and listening to them, and I
mean providers aspiring to excellence and
advocating strongly for their consumers.
It is about doctors listening to and
examining patients and, consequently, not
missing opportunities to diagnose. As one
consumer aptly stated: “Yes I have cancer
and [Dr B] did not pick it up, but what is
more important is the way he treated me.
I was never listened to, never sent for tests,
never examined or blood pressures taken,
no X-rays just prescribed my medication
and told to give up smoking. I had to sit
through comments from [Dr B] such as
‘you depress me’. How would that
make you feel?”
By transparency I mean sharing
information when things do go wrong,
talking about adverse events and learning
from them. And by an empowering culture
I mean the way all these elements come
together to form a well-functioning
system; what we do, how we do things
and the reasons behind our actions
(or omissions).
I mean that team members who strongly
suspect that a consumer is at risk must
advocate for that consumer. Providers must
be supported to bring concerns about a
consumer’s welfare to the attention of an
appropriate senior practitioner.
HDC ANNUAL REPORT 2012
Health and Disability Commissioner
Anthony Hill
3