To be attributed to National Chief Clinical Officer, Dr Richard Sullivan

We have concluded the clinical leadership consultation process and have agreed a way forward for the clinical leaders across the motu.

Our clinical leaders are at the heart of how we operate as an organisation, which is reflected in the decision.

We carefully reviewed and considered all feedback and as a result we made a number of significant changes to the initial proposal. There is a slight increase in clinical leadership roles as a result of these changes.

Clinical chiefs such as Chief Nurses and Chief Medical Officers will have a wider focus, in addition to the operational needs of their particular hospital. They will all now adopt a ‘whole of system’ way of working to ensure greater consistency at a regional and local level.

As part of this new clinical leadership model, our district clinical chiefs will work in partnership with the regional DCEs and will have the opportunity to work as a regional chief. This will be a through a ‘portfolio’ approach for medical, nursing, allied health scientific & technical, midwifery and mental health. This aims to support clinical input into regional decision-making and promotes regional integration.

We are pleased that we can now provide more certainty and continuity of leadership for our people, and work to deliver better health outcomes for New Zealanders.

Note for editors: The initial proposal included a suggestion to group several smaller regions with larger ones from a clinical leadership perspective. We received a significant amount of feedback about this aspect of the proposal. The decision not to proceed will minimise any disruption from changes and will support existing relationships between clinical and operational leadership roles at local and regional levels. We may decide to revisit this issue in the future and if so, we would consult on any proposed changes.