Health Minister Dr Shane Reti visited the new Dunedin Hospital build site in June this year. Photo: RNZ/Tess Brunton
Health New Zealand says it is on track to spend $2 billion on construction and other capital projects this financial year.
Last financial year it had aimed to spend $1.8b by March 2024, but spent only half that, partly due to projects being stuck in planning or design stages.
"More ... major capital projects are entering their construction phases this year," it told RNZ.
"This is where more money is spent, compared with the initial phases of a project."
That shift brought an increase in total expenditure and better cash flow certainty, head of infrastructure planning and investment Aaron Matthews said in a statement on Tuesday.
"We acknowledge that any delays on major projects may affect actual spend."
This has been the case on its current largest build, the New Dunedin Hospital project.
Cabinet ministers announced an overspend at Dunedin where plans are now being revised, which they said might upset the budgets on several major regional hospital builds in the wings - Whangārei, Nelson, Tauranga and Hawke's Bay.
At Taranaki Hospital, its $403 million stage two build featuring a big new east wing building was given a negative red rating for risks in January, in a report that said "Stage 2 awaits further investigation and a change request to confirm cost pressures", after costs went up another $27m.
In Nelson, Labour MPs have been hosting public meetings about the hospital rebuild's future.
Detailed business planning was first brought forward on Nelson, but has now been pushed back to 2025.
At the same time as forecasting the bigger capital spend, Health NZ Te Whatu Ora is trying to make $2b in operational savings, to claw back a huge deficit.
Matthews said the agency had strengthened its systems for reporting, financial tracking, and cash flow projections for capital projects.
However, it has been talking about how it has made big improvements for over a year.
It said in a January internal report - just before a big deficit was revealed - that it had developed a full operational and capital plan.
In April, Health Minister Shane Reti said he had "high expectations" the agency would do better now it could provide "coordinated national oversight".
He told it that before asking the government for more money, it should first consider reducing the size of projects, postponing them or using "internal funds", in a letter of expectations for infrastructure.
The country's first health infrastructure investment plan will feed into Budget 2025.
Reti said data and digital projects had to be in the mix.
However, hundreds of millions of dollars have been cut from these projects recently.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
