Welcome to our latest update from the National Asset Management Plan (NAMP) team. Sorry it’s been a while. The one thing you can always expect from working in Health is change – so what does this mean for the team? There’s been quite a few changes – it’s an exciting time for Health infrastructure as the Ministry starts to build its capability and capacity in this area.

This update includes:

1. Ministry changes
2. National Asset Management Plan
3. Health Asset Register Tool (HART)
4. Next steps
5. Upcoming asset management events.

1. Ministry changes

There’s been a number of personnel changes in our capital teams over the last few months. We said farewell to Mhairi Mchugh, Manager DHB Capital Investment, and NAMP Project Manager, Karen Ellis.

Mhairi took a well-deserved break after working at the Ministry for 20 years, and Karen took up a role at Wairarapa DHB helping with their IT projects.

How was the gap filled? With Helene Carbonatto as Group Manager, Capital Investment Management (left in photo below), and Maxine (Max) Forde as Manager, Asset Management and Analysis (right in photo below).

Helene joined us from Hutt Valley DHB where she was General Manager, Strategy Planning and Outcomes. She has previous experience on capital projects and brings significant knowledge of health sector planning and strategic thinking.

Many of you will already know Max. She joined us from Treasury where she was the Asset Management lead and Treasury representative on the NAMP steering group. Max has experience in asset management at a departmental and whole of government level.

Health Infrastructure Unit

Budget 2019 provides funding to lift the capacity and capability within the Ministry’s new Health Infrastructure Unit, which was established late last year to support and oversee DHB capital projects.

The Unit is designed to enhance the Ministry’s stewardship role (leading health investment through the planning, prioritising, monitoring of projects), and standardise the way projects are designed and delivered.

This involves developing and implementing a comprehensive framework, including:

• consistent tools, data and frameworks for asset management
• stewardship, leadership and national planning assumptions
• investment system and portfolio governance and support
• standards to support investment decision making and project delivery
• project delivery (for example, the new Dunedin Hospital). 

The Unit has two branches under Michelle Arrowsmith, DDG for Performance, Support and Infrastructure – Project Delivery (Karl Wilkinson) and Capital Investment Management (Helene Carbonatto).

There are a number of teams in the Capital Investment Management group (note, some of the titles have changed as thinking has evolved), they are led by:

• Asset Management and Analysis (Maxine Forde)
• Service Planning (Astuti Balram)
• Design Standards and Policy (Natalie Richardson)
• Capital Strategy (Jo Strachan-Hope)
• Capital Monitoring (Loren Shand)

As you can see, the group has expanded from a small team to include new functions such as service planning and design standards. There will be a big recruitment drive to fill a number of roles in the coming months. Please be patient with us as we build our capability and capacity and develop our detailed work programmes.

2. National Asset Management Plan

As you’re aware, the team was working towards delivering a National Asset Management Plan to the Minister of Health by December 2019.

Rather than a full Asset Management Plan, we submitted a draft assessment of the current state of health infrastructure, which the Minister is currently considering.

We intend to share key findings at the next HAMI meeting on 17 February (see below for more details on the HAMI agenda).

We couldn’t have produced the report and generated significant deliverables without your help. The report is an assessment of the valuable information you provided us. It will hopefully become useful for DHBs, including the data in the HART tool.

A big thank you to all the Chief Financial Officers, Strategy, Funding and Planning managers, Facility managers, clinicians and DHB staff who gave up their valuable time to provide information or host the team during site visits.

The information we’ve gathered has given the Ministry a good starting base in understanding asset management and the pressure points in the system.

Given media focus on DHB infrastructure, we expect a number of OIA’s for information. If you are approached, our media team would appreciate a heads up so we can share information.

3. Health Asset Register Tool (HART)

Some of you will have seen the prototype developed for the HART (Health Asset Register Tool). A lot of work has gone into this project, and there’s more to do to fill data gaps, standardise and validate the information.

The HART tool provides dashboards with drill-down functionality to display data collected as part of the NAMP work including:

• condition assessment of building and infrastructure as provided by DHBs and supplemented by the on-site assessment from BECA
• clinical facility fitness for purpose for the 80 sites visited by the team and ChowHill.

The HART tool has been migrated to a SharePoint platform, using Power BI to develop the graphics.

We’re now looking at the next steps, which is likely to include access for DHBs.

However, we need to test the information, reporting and extraction of data first. We also need to evaluate who should be the end users, as well as look at potential security issues of sharing information.

Please be patient with us as this could take several months. Let us know if you have a ‘use case’ for access to the HART tool.

In the interim, we’re developing an analytic ‘A3’ for each DHB using data and narrative from the NAMP assessment.

We’ll be in touch on this and we’ll be showing a prototype at the HAMI meeting.

4. Next steps

When the Ministry restructured it was acknowledged we required a greater focus on capital investment, the condition of assets and the future direction for the sector.  

So, what happens next with the work that’s been started by the NAMP? This will become part of the Asset Management team’s work plan.

The Ministry is looking at how the National Asset Management Programme will be resourced on an on-going basis.

We’re developing a work programme which will be scalable to clearly identify what can be delivered depending on the resources and funding available.

We’re in the process of commissioning work to 30 June 2020, including:

• asset management strategy and policy for the Health sector (aligned with Northern Regional Alliance work)
• asset management guidance, including an asset management plan template and an initial set of asset levels of service
• additional clinical facility fitness for purpose assessments (mental health focus including forensics)
• development of a risk and assurance programme
• scoping clinical equipment and IT requirements and how they fit within the asset management programme.

5. Upcoming events

HAMI Meeting

Thanks to those who attended the ‘Risk and Resilience’ HAMI meeting at Counties Manukau DHB.

The next HAMI meeting is on 17 February 2020 at the Ministry here in Wellington. It would be great to see a good representation across DHBs.

We intend to use the HAMI forums as the primary means to gain input into our work programme and deliverables, supplemented by a secondary email consultation round.

The focus of the meeting will include:

• meet the Capital Investment team, including key NAMP findings
• blue sky session – what does the asset management future across the sector look like
• health sector asset management goals and objectives (to be articulated in the Asset Management Strategy and Policy for the Health sector)
• speakers from Health Alliance and GS1.

If you would like a copy of the HAMI presentations or to be invited to the meeting, please contact [email protected].

Asset Management Training

The Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA) works with NZ Asset Management Support to develop and implement best practice in asset management.

IPWEA have the following courses coming up:

Date	Course	Location
20 February	Understanding Asset Management	New Plymouth
21 February	Writing, Living and Updating Asset Management Plans	New Plymouth
25 February	Understanding Asset Management	Hamilton
25 February	Writing, Living and Updating Asset Management Plans	Hamilton

For more information and to register go to the IPWEA website.

6. Next update

We plan to get back to our regular monthly updates to keep you posted on the work programme and other events in the capital investment space.

Look out for our next update, and please contact the team if you have any questions: [email protected]

Your continued support is really appreciated.