CORPORATE OFFICE
Level 1
32 Oxford Terrace
Telephone: 0064 3 364 4160
Christchurch Central
Fax: 0064 3 364 4165
CHRISTCHURCH 8011
[email address]
23 June 2020
Ms Amy Van Wey Lovatt
Email: [FYI request #12976 email]
Dear Ms Van Wey Lovatt
RE Official Information Act request CDHB 10325 AND WCDHB 9433
I refer to your email dated 30 May 2020 requesting the following information under the Official
Information Act from Canterbury DHB AND West Coast DHB re publication of all DHB Policies, Protocols
and Best Practice Documents. Specifically:
1. That your DHB make ALL your DHB policies, protocols and best practice documents publicly
available.
We do not consider this to be an OIA request. Rather, it is a request that the DHBs publish these
documents publicly, and on an ongoing basis. The DHBs have more than 2500 ‘controlled documents’ –
policies, procedures and guidelines, and up to 5000 documents if ‘best practice guidelines’ are added.
To publish these would require significant work, as we cannot simply transfer those documents en mass
from our intranet, our systems are not able to do this.
The DHB will and does provide specific policies/protocols on request. Many of those polices are
prepared for clinical use and would require additional context/interpretation for them to be meaningful
if read by the public.
2. Is your DHB laboratory and radiology departments, or the agencies your DHB has contract out
pathology and radiology services, IANZ accredited?
The IANZ website has information regarding the current scope of practice for every Medical Diagnostic
Lab (and others). IANZ do not reissue certificates every year necessarily, hence their website has the
most up to date information as to currently accredited services. The same will apply for Radiology and
the contracted providers of the DHBs for radiology and labs. Our original accreditation dates back to
1994.
https://www.ianz.govt.nz/directory/
https://www.chl.co.nz/images/stories/ianz_accreditation.pdf
https://www.chl.co.nz/images/stories/ianz_certificate_2014.pdf
Our scope of accreditation (the tests we provide that are assessed by our accreditation body) is
reviewed on an annual basis and a new certificate is provided if that scope changes. The certificate on
our website (which is also publicly available on the IANZ website) is the current one.
http://www.chl.co.nz/accreditation; 3. ALL of the documentation submitted to IANZ for accreditation by your DHB (or contracted agencies)
be made publicly available upon your DHB website (or as a link to your contracted agencies website).
We do not consider this to be an OIA request. Rather, it is a request that the DHBs publish these
documents publicly, and on an ongoing basis.
There will be substantial documentation involved, and significant work and technical resource would be
needed to add the documents to our internet. Further, the information is of a largely technical nature,
and would be meaningless to most reading it.
Further, the DHBs do not hold information relating to contracted agencies – the fact of accreditation is
all that the DHBs require by way of assurance.
You may, under section 28(3) of the Official Information Act, seek a review of our decision to withhold
information by the Ombudsman. Information about how to make a complaint is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz; or Freephone 0800 802 602.
Please note that this response, or an edited version of this response, may be published on the
Canterbury DHB and West Coast DHB websites after your receipt of this response.
Yours sincerely
Carolyn Gullery
Executive Director
Planning, Funding & Decision Support
