DHB chief 'ashamed' of report | Manawatu-Wanganui News | Local News in Manawatu-Wanganui

The head of Wanganui's district health board said she was "ashamed" of the latest report into Wanganui Hospital's mental health unit.

The report, prompted by allegations made by a previous patient at Te Awhina, said medication errors, assaults and patients absent without leave were occurring more frequently than expected and staffing indicators showed a system under stress.

On Friday, the review was discussed by the DHB and Julie Patterson, the board chief executive, said "I'm ashamed of it (this report)".

"There was some basic stuff going on (in the unit) and there are gaps that we simply weren't aware of," Mrs Patterson told the board.

But she said management had been able to put a corrective action plan in place and was receiving weekly reports on what was happening.

"We've essentially gone back to square one and are rebuilding from the ground up," she said.

"Some of the basic stuff this latest review has alerted us to will be dealt with immediately."

Mrs Patterson told the meeting that this was one of a number of reports that had been commissioned on Te Awhina but suggested the previous ones did not delve deep enough.

"We knew we had to dig deeper with this one."

Jeannette Woltman-Black, the hospital general manager, said this latest review was more about what was missing.

"But I couldn't be bold enough to say there won't be another one (incident)," she said.

Board member Nancy Tuaine said better internal reviews could have shown up the shortcomings earlier and "that would mean this wouldn't come as a surprise".

Mrs Patterson said a lot of audits were being done regularly but that was not always the case in the area of mental health.

"Management wasn't checking that," she said.

She said the skill mix in terms of staffing at Te Awhina was an issue and had been recognised as such.

"We will try to achieve what the Mental Health Commissioner has advised and we are recruiting for staff now," she said.

"But it won't happen overnight because there aren't the registered nurses out there who can fill these roles."

Board chairwoman Kate Joblin said mental health was a complex area of care and asked Mrs Patterson what management had learned from these incidents and reviews.

Mrs Patterson replied: "Not to take for granted that the basics are in place."

As a result the board will be given regular updates on progress with the mental health action plan.

"While it appears the review does not explicitly investigate the allegations, the reviewers did find that the mental health service was slow to respond and the safety of patients was compromised because the service lacked awareness of the reportable events," Mrs Patterson said.

"It is simply not good enough that our service lacked these basic requirements."

She said since then management had focused on urgently fixing these inadequacies and the review team had acknowledged the management's "prompt response".