'Increasing pressures' cause Pretoria Lodge's closure

Mental health service provider Pretoria Lodge closed its doors at the weekend after two decades of operation.

It provided services to various levels of need, from people who were sub-acute to people who were supported and living the community.

Lakes District Health Board has placed its clients with other agencies to ensure ongoing support.

Pretoria Lodge, which opened in 1994, was run by Ian Bale and his sister Christine Dawson, with some support from another family member. Pretoria Lodge was based in Pretoria St and run on a client-focused, recovery-focused family/whanau basis.

The changing environment of health service provision had become increasingly challenging, Mr Bale said, with accountability for public spending driving significant compliance costs to providers.

"We strove to provide services that wrapped around people and in that respect we provided a lot of flexibility," Mr Bale said.

"It was good that the flexibility of our service provision improved, and the [new] contract allowed us more flexibility, but the increasing pressures from certification, documentation, statistics collection and audit requirements did impact at the work-face of the services and created enormous pressure on NGOs who are expected to provide more services for fewer dollars."

Mr Bale also sat on the Local Advisory Group and helped lead a forum of residential providers.

Lakes Board portfolio manager for Mental Health Services, Marita Ranclaud, said Mr Bale put in lots of energy into helping increase the skill and capability of the non-regulated workforce.

"It has been an amazing experience which has taught me as much about myself and my commitment to providing best practice to mental health service provision," said Mr Bale, who is now working as a needs assessment service co-ordinator for the health board.