Tom Love, Principal at Sapere, was asked by Canterbury DHB to do a comparative analysis of its hospital inpatient trends against the rest of New Zealand over the period 2006/07 to 2011/12.

The goal was to inform a report by the King’s Fund on progress in integrating services in the Canterbury health system.

The overall finding is that Canterbury has a different trend of hospital discharges from New Zealand overall, demonstrating a rebalancing of services away from acute hospital care while maintaining comparability with the rest of New Zealand in elective surgical services.