Jon Keast

Te Whatu Ora Southern

Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand Southern is part of Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand which leads the day-to-day running of the health system across New Zealand. Te Whatu Ora Southern supports everyone across our district to live well, and access the right care when they need it, by delivering high quality, patient-centred and equitable health services to our diverse communities. We are responsible for planning, funding, and providing health and disability services to a population of over 350,000 located South of the Waitaki River. Our catchment area encompasses Invercargill City, Queenstown - Lakes District, Gore, rural Southland, Clutha, Central Otago, Maniototo, Waitaki District and Dunedin City. This means Te Whatu Ora Southern serves the largest geographic region of all New Zealand's health boards. To achieve this, we work in partnership with Iwi, primary care and community providers, rural trust hospitals and education and research partners across the district. Altogether, we receive government funding of over $900 million per annum, of which approximately half is applied to traditional hospital and mental health services delivered from Southland Hospital, Lakes District Hospital (Queenstown), Dunedin Hospital and Wakari Hospital. The other half of our funding is applied through contracts with a range of primary and community health providers. This funding is distributed to providers such as Primary Health Organisations (general practices), pharmacies, laboratories, aged residential care facilities, Pacific Islands and Māori Health providers, non-governmental mental health services, rural hospitals, and primary maternity facilities. Our statutory purpose is to: -improve, promote and protect the health of our population -promote effective care and support for people in need of personal health or disability services -reduce health outcome disparities -manage national strategies and implementation plans