Southern District Health Board

As a DHB we must balance national health goals and targets set by the Government, alongside our own region's population health needs and the community's expectations about priorities for health, within our available funding. 

To determine how Southern DHB will purchase health services to improve, promote and protect the health of its population, an ongoing cycle of planning takes place, as illustrated in the figure below.

Key to this planning cycle is the five-yearly Health Needs Assessment (or Health Profile of the local population) together with overarching government policy and strategy and the Minister of Health's DHB Health Targets, which shape and guide the direction of the DHB's funding priority areas and our strategic and operational planning activity.

Note that within the planning cycle above, after the Minster of Health has agreed to Southern DHB's District Annual Plan, a Crown Funding Agreement is prepared and government funding is forthcoming to the DHB for that year.

The following figure shows the wider DHB planning framework and the linkage between the DHB's key strategic planning and accountability documents (District Strategic Plan, District Annual Plan and Statement of Intent) to the local health needs assessment (HNA) and overarching government policy and strategy.