Two Lakes District Health Board staff have been dismissed because of misconduct so far this year - the same as for the whole of last year.
Figures released to the Rotorua Daily Post under the Official Information Act showed, in the first three months of this year, two staff had been dismissed for misconduct with a further five given formal warnings.
It compares with two staff dismissed in the whole of last year, and three in 2014. In 2012, one staff member was dismissed because of misconduct, while there were no dismissals in 2013 or 2011.
No staff have been suspended in the first quarter of 2016, but there had been five warnings compared with six warnings for all of 2015.
While the health board provided figures on dismissals, suspensions and warnings for the past five years, it refused to give the reasons for the warnings or dismissals because of the small numbers, and said in a small community those people could be identified.
In a statement, health board chief executive Ron Dunham said the health board took misconduct "very seriously".
He said there were 1500 employees working at the district health board therefore the numbers were what could be expected from an organisation of its size.
Mr Dunham said some of the 2016 numbers were the result of disciplinary processes which were started in 2015.
Examples of serious misconduct included substandard performance and non adherence to policy, he said.