175 digital roles retained - staff concerns persist

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth 

The final decision document for Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora data and digital directorate has been released to staff and includes the retention of 175 more roles than had been proposed. 

However, staff remain concerned about the impact of cuts on clinical outcomes and patient privacy, the country’s largest trade union says.

Sonny Taite, acting chief information technology officer, says that following feedback and consultation with staff, clinicians, and union representatives, the final structure will see 1460 roles retained nationally.

The restructure involves 610 roles being disestablished and staff given the opportunity to apply for 651 newly created roles. Another 447 roles will be disestablished and staff given a chance to be redeployed within the organisation.

As of November 2024, the FTE already included 678 vacancies. This  has risen to 758 and all of these roles will be disestablished.

"We currently have more roles available in the digital team than people, and we are committed to enabling as many staff as possible to be retained or redeployed into roles in this team and elsewhere in the organisation ,” he says.

Health NZ had proposed to slash data and digital roles by 47 percent, as part of efforts to save $100 million annually from the directorate’s budget.

The total number of disestablished roles is now 1815, including redeployments. Another 237 positions are 'transferring out', including those who have already moved into the data services team under Planning Funding and Outcomes (PFO).

The Public Service Association (PSA) Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi started litigation in the Employment Relations Authority about the original proposal saying it “overlooked or ignored the considerable increase in clinical risk which would follow the introduction of their proposals”.

Set down to be heard on April 22, 2025, it has since been halted.

Fleur Fitzsimons, national secretary for the PSA says the legal action resulted in 175 roles being added back into these teams and for contractor roles to be made available to employees whose jobs have been disestablished and want to be redeployed.

“The union's position is that no worker within data and digital should be compulsorily made redundant, and the employer needs to take a very active role in matching people's skills to roles in the new structure,” she tells eHealthNews.

She says the union will be monitoring this “very active redeployment process”, so that people who want to remain doing this important work within Health NZ can do so.

“There will still be significant loss of expertise and skills and experience from data and digital teams and hospitals all over New Zealand as a result of early exits and this change process, and that will come at a cost,” Fitzsimons says. 

"The cuts just go too deep and too wide if the Government expects to deliver the timely and quality patient care it’s promising New Zealanders."

She says staff are pleased that there are significantly more roles going into the structure than was the case prior to the litigation, but remain concerned about the impact of cuts on clinical outcomes and patient privacy. 

“There has been very strong support from clinicians for retention of these data and digital roles, and strong support for more staff in this area, not fewer, because clinicians know the desperate need to have good systems and good processes to make sure that patient information is stored correctly and can be accessed quickly,” Fitzsimons says.

The union also asked the Privacy Commissioner to investigate the planned cuts arguing that they threaten the security of sensitive patient data, but the request has been declined.

"The PSA remains deeply concerned that sensitive patient information will be at greater risk from cyber security breaches because of these cuts," she says. 

A HiNZ special report, published in February, details the potential impact of proposed funding cuts to digital health services, with respondents warning of significant consequences for patient care and the healthcare workforce. Read the report online.

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