Health Minister David Clark questions district health board model

Health Minister David Clark says the current DHB model may not be the best for the future. Photo / NZME

Health Minister David Clark has given a strong indication that district health boards in their current form may not be around in future.

"I do think it's time to have a fresh look at the wider health system and to see whether the DHB model, as it is now, is the best way forward," Clark told reporters yesterday.

"Our DHB model is very responsive locally. It's got some real strengths but good information isn't shared well across the system, there's some well-canvassed financial performance things, and while no system is perfect I think it's time to have a fresh look.

"In the health sector there's a general view that it is time for some change. It's a sentiment that I have, but it's also shared by clinicians and those who work in the sector.

Clark said he would announce more about the issue in due course.

He told the Herald last month that any changes from a review of the health system would not be implemented in this term of Government.

He made his comments yesterday following an RNZ report that a $12 million non-medical building at Middlemore Hospital was built without being properly approved, and another may also have been.

Last month Clark appointed experienced health administrator Ken Whelan as a Crown monitor to the troubled Counties Manukau DHB, which ended its last financial year about $13 million in deficit, with forecast deficits to come.