Nigel Miller, former Chief Medical Officers at Canterbury District Health Board

Come along on Tuesday evening at Smash Palace from 5pm with the talk commencing at 5.30. It will be livestreamed on Facebook

How your health service could be; compared with how it is now.

Nigel is a Geriatrician and General Physician who came to Canterbury in 1992 from the North East of England. He was initially Clinical Director of aged care and then in 2003 the Chief Medical Officer for the, then new, Canterbury District Health Board until 2016 when he took the same role in Otago/Southland.

The exec team, leadership and clinical staff took Canterbury to a place of international renown in the world of health. The NHS has based a lot of its current design on work done here. This got Christchurch through the earthquakes but has been eroded by central government restrictions of late. Nigel feels all is not lost as Canterbury still has a great team of health workers locally and can rise again to lead the provision of healthcare in NZ. It is of note that the recently announced plan to create a shared health record across NZ is based on the model that originated in Canterbury and has run across the South Island for over 10 years.

Nigel’s premise is that health provision should not be seen simply as a cost. His comment “it is a very large part of the economy – the Canterbury Health System is by far the biggest employer in the South Island. Most of the money spent in health – over 70% goes in paying people who then recycle that through the local economy. The opportunities are great but the challenges daunting. The transformation required can be overwhelming particularly for the people inside health who, quite understandably, fear for the people they provide care for.