Health Board’s 10-Year Plan Due Soon

By HULBERT, Jayne

THE Taranaki District Health Board’s 10-year plan is almost ready, after a month-long consultation phase.

It ends a process which started a year ago with a round of health board discussions and workshops.

By July, the draft strategic 10-year plan was written. For 30 days, until the middle of last month, the plan went out for public consultation.

That phase wound up last week, when several people spoke to their written submissions before this month’s full health board meeting in Stratford.

The plan maps out the health board’s direction for the next 10 years.

TDHB chief executive Tony Foulkes said the final phase had been slightly delayed because feedback had not been received from the Health Ministry.

“We were hoping to get this last week, but we’ll not be able to get that until September 22,” Mr Foulkes told board members.

Any input from the ministry would come back to the board in October or November for final sign-off.

The board received 43 written submissions to the plan — 28 from the public and 15 from local organisations. Nine submitters opted to give oral presentations.

During this month, all the feedback will be assessed and revisions to the plan made.

The draft plan identified eight main aims to achieve the vision of a healthy community — to promote healthy lifestyles and self responsibility, to have the people and infrastructure to meet changing health needs, to optimise health through through prevention and early intervention, to have accessible, people-centred services, to have a multi-agency approach to health, to improve the health of Maori and groups with poor health status, to lead and support the health and disability sector, and to make the best use of available resources.

It also highlights eight areas for extra focus: Children and young people, Maori, older people, mental health, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and respiratory disease.