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Speaker 1: More insight into our health spending. Contractor and consultant work

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Speaker 1: has gone up. We have an extra eighty five million

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Speaker 1: dollars spend of the past financial year to June. That's

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Speaker 1: despite the government directive, of course to cut back Health

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Speaker 1: New Zealand Chief Clinical Officer, doctor Richard Sullivan's with us Richard,

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Speaker 1: very good morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, good morning.

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Speaker 1: Line is eighty five million something to hanging And I

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Speaker 1: suppose it's a lot of money for most of us,

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Speaker 1: but when you're dealing with a thirty billion dollar behemoth,

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Speaker 1: there's eighty five million something to raise the eyebrows, Like.

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Speaker 2: I think there was obviously used for the spend days

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Speaker 2: is textpayers money. But the reality behind it eighty five

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Speaker 2: million is that the bulk of that is actually in

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Speaker 2: our chronical workforce trying to cover our rosters and the vacancies.

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Speaker 2: So they're real focused sometimes a clinical care to our communities.

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Speaker 1: So when we talk about consultants we think the worst.

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Speaker 1: So these are people who are actually doing real work,

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Speaker 1: needed real work, and it.

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Speaker 2: Is what it is. Yeah, I've got sort of break

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Speaker 2: down and as you say, contact is a consultant, so

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Speaker 2: that the contractors, that's really the people doing the real work.

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Speaker 2: For eighty five percent of that spends on people doing

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Speaker 2: the real work. Consultants. You know, we do need specialist

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Speaker 2: advice p particular areas, and so we have a spend

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Speaker 2: on that. On that spend actually dropped by fifty percent

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Speaker 2: in the last quarter, so we better really focus on

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Speaker 2: trying to wind that back while facting on little in

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Speaker 2: clinical frontlines.

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Speaker 1: Here would you argue you are saving money to the

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Speaker 1: extent that under a specific line item like contractors and consultants,

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Speaker 1: the cost is up, but if you employed people full time,

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Speaker 1: you'd find that it was even more expensible. We can't

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Speaker 1: say that.

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Speaker 2: Now. We can't say that, Mike. It's a great question

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Speaker 2: and act. We would prefer to have more per staff.

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Speaker 2: It's a great challenging space, particularly with our senior medical doctors.

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Speaker 2: With international I'm sure to deboss the play. So we

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Speaker 2: would prefer to have business staff. Areas like rural medicine

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Speaker 2: societry to net. You know, we would prefer that to

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Speaker 2: bring a people permanently, and that made Vale save those

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Speaker 2: in the long too. But that is the reality of

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Speaker 2: that mat And.

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Speaker 1: When you say at the moment, will you ever solve

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Speaker 1: things like rural medicine or mental health or any of

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Speaker 1: those long term, ongoing challenges.

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Speaker 2: That's a great question as well. I'm not sure we

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Speaker 2: ever solve it. But you know, like all things, you

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Speaker 2: put real focus, you look at different models, the way

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Speaker 2: to live, the services, different workforces. So I think we

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Speaker 2: can improve our mental health services, our rural medicine services

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Speaker 2: by just putting out real focus on that area. But

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Speaker 2: as you say, well it save a lot of money.

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Speaker 2: It's hard to know, but we would prefer people the afflicts.

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Speaker 1: Are you across what Lester Levy is doing? Are you

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Speaker 1: at that end of the spectrum? And as chief clinical

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Speaker 1: officer in the sense when I ask the very broad

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Speaker 1: question is he saving money? And are we heading in

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Speaker 1: the right direction? You can give me an answer or not.

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Speaker 2: So you very much hum across in fact at long

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Speaker 2: chat with yesterday. So we keep in touch verically and

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Speaker 2: that folks are sol and clinical workforce improving a clinical

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Speaker 2: care safety and I guess that real drive around XSA

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Speaker 2: to really sure that actalmutes can get better access. And yes,

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Speaker 2: there's a definite pocus on trying to make this financially sustainable,

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Speaker 2: looking at opportunities you know where we can try and

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Speaker 2: produce some of those stenses.

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Speaker 1: All right, appreciate your time. Richard Richards Sullivan, doctor Richards Sulivan,

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Speaker 1: who's the Health of New Zealand chief Clinical opposite.

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