{"id":11991,"date":"2024-11-29T06:02:57","date_gmt":"2024-11-28T17:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=11991"},"modified":"2024-11-29T06:02:57","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T17:02:57","slug":"health-nz-72m-spent-on-outsourced-staff-for-single-it-project-amid-staff-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=11991","title":{"rendered":"Health NZ: $72m spent on outsourced staff for single IT project, amid staff cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Health New Zealand spent $72 million on contractors and consultants for a single IT project in the lead-up to moving to sack over a thousand IT employees.<\/p>\n<p>One recruitment company alone, Robert Walters, was paid $17m in the last two years on the project. Robert Walters declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p>The big spending on the outside hires is set to continue into next year, though Health NZ said it expected more staff to be taken on, too.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/political\/524904\/how-many-public-sector-roles-are-going-and-from-where\">How many public sector roles are going, and from where<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/535016\/shortsighted-shameful-and-ludicrous-reaction-to-more-jobs-axed-in-health-sector\">Shortsighted and ludicrous &#8211; reaction to more jobs axed in health sector<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Its plan for cost cutting by shedding hundreds of staff was expected to save just on $13m a year, according to Te Whatu Ora Health NZ&#8217;s consultation document released on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The axe hovers over whole teams of the staff, at the same time that at least two projects are looking to extend contractors&#8217; contracts.<\/p>\n<p>The cost-cutting plan had also sparked fears a groundbreaking new AI app, that could almost double the rate at which mental health patients were assessed, was in jeopardy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s one of the most innovative things we&#8217;ve seen come out of Health New Zealand since it was formed, so that would be extremely disappointing &#8230; for this &#8230; to be shut down,&#8221; said senior doctors&#8217; union conference delegate and psychiatrist Carin Conaghan.<\/p>\n<p>An Official Information Act request unearthed the $72m spend on contractors and consultants for RNZ,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/534982\/te-whatu-ora-staff-filled-with-anxiety-over-proposed-job-cuts\">on the eve of the release of the cost-cutting proposal<\/a>, which aims at saving Te Whatu Ora $100m a year, under government orders to make big savings, to put the brakes on a threatened $1.7 billion deficit by next July.<\/p>\n<p>rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Health New Zealand spent $72 million on contractors and consultants for a single IT project in the lead-up to moving to sack over a thousand IT employees. One recruitment company alone, Robert Walters, was paid $17m in the last two years on the project. Robert Walters declined to comment. The big spending on the outside [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11993,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11991\/revisions\/11993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}