Disciplinary action rare: DHB

Only a small amount of staff are facing disciplinary action with the Hawkes Bay DHB.

Numbers of staff facing disciplinary action at Hawke's Bay District Health Board (DHB) are "negligible," the board says, despite it being listed second in the country for disciplined staff.

Official Information Act documents obtained by the Herald on Sunday, showed 61 DHB staff had faced disciplinary action for inappropriate behaviour over the past six years.

The report found front-line hospital staff around the country had been caught falling asleep during surgery, turning up to work drunk and even assaulting patients.

The DHB was second on the list of 18 District Health Boards with 61 staff disciplined, behind Northland, which had a total of 91.

Auckland, in third place, had 53 staff disciplined.

But a DHB spokeswoman said it was "impossible to compare DHBs".

"The DHB employs nearly 2800 staff and the numbers who have faced disciplinary action has stayed negligible at about 0.42 per cent over the past five years."

There had been nine incidents requiring disciplinary action from January to September last year.

There had been 12 incidents in 2013, and a five-year high of 16 incidents in 2012.

There were 12 incidents in each of the two years prior.

"DHBs collect data in different ways with different parameters, which makes it impossible to compare DHBs. We don't know what staff other DHBs included in their response, or what they defined as disciplinary action," the spokeswoman said.

DHB acting chief executive Tim Evans said the DHB was confident it had the right measures and processes in place to discourage inappropriate behaviour and the numbers reported were "statistically negligible" compared to the number of staff employed.

There had not been any increase in reported incidents requiring disciplinary action over time.

"Disciplinary action is, and should be, a rare event," Mr Evans said.

"Patient safety is paramount and disciplinary action is part of ensuring a consistent and quality service to our community,"