History
The establishment and development of thePHO has been sponsored by GenPro in response to concerns raised by GenPro members that their own PHOs do not always appear to act in the best interests of individual general practices and the communities they serve. This includes concerns that government funding intended to benefit local communities may not always be reaching those communities or the general practices that provide services for them.
GenPro believes that the current PHO policy settings and existing PHO structures have led to a number of challenges which impact upon patient care including:
- Excessive and avoidable bureaucracy for Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora in dealing with approximately 30 individual PHOs
- Lack of economies of scale with many small PHOs;
- Excessive funding being diverted to management & administration costs (including approximately 30 separate governance boards, administrative headquarters and an overly-populated national contracting process);
- Accumulation of reserves at local PHO level from funding otherwise intended to directly fund front-line patient services and support contracted providers;
- Significant conflicts of interest and unintended consequences as many PHOs have developed competing commercial interests such as direct ownership of contracted providers and the for-profit development of services (e.g. IT, registry management and telehealth services) sold to their own member contracted providers;
- Significant variations in approach and services resulting in an avoidable and unwarranted postcode lottery for patient care;
- A deterioration in relationships as disenfranchised contracted providers lose trust and confidence in their PHO which they may no longer deem to be acting in the best interests of their general practices or the local enrolled population.
thePHO will aim to address these challenges and offer transparency and maximisation of resources to front-line patient care.