NZ DHB CALLS IN LAWYERS

The country's largest District Health Board has hired a lawyer and brought in a senior nurse from another area to investigate concerns about senior management in a mental health unit.
Late last year an open letter expressing no confidence in the Director of Nursing for mental health at the Auckland District Health Board, was signed by nurses working at mental health unit Te Whetu Tawera.
The nurses at the 58-bed unit near Auckland City Hospital – are being represented by the Public Service Association.
A PSA spokesman  said he understood a decision around senior nursing leadership would be made in the next couple of weeks.
The PSA would not be releasing the letter as the investigation had not been completed.
A, ADHB spokesman confirmed there was an independent review into "potential workplace issues raised by staff."
"Auckland DHB has commissioned an independent review to see if there is any substance regarding claims of workplace issues raised by staff.
 "To confirm specific details before this process would breach Auckland DHB's responsibilities to its staff and management and breach the confidentiality of the process and the persons involved," he said.
"Auckland DHB takes the claims made seriously and has appointed a lawyer, advised by a senior nurse adviser from another DHB to carry out an independent review of the human resources issues to see if there is any substance to them."
The review started in March.
The spokesman said the issues raised in the review are not about clinical safety, practice or care and that the review's focus is on workplace issues.
He would not provide figures on the number of patients who had died subsequent to treatment at Te Whetu Tawera over the past 18 months but said the unit would have treated and discharged 900 to 1000 patients over this period.
He would not confirm when the review would finish apart from saying they expect the reviewers to "complete their task as promptly as possible".
To date no one has been stood down as a result of the investigation.
Te Whetu Tawera has been plagued by problems for several years - a Health Ministry review in 2008 said the service suffered "a lack of appropriate leadership in medicine, nursing and management" and said problems had been occurring "over some years, and no effective action has been taken".
 - Stuff