MidCentral and Whanganui District Health Board's new joint contract with Spotless Services has successfully commenced this week.

The two DHB's recently agreed a joint contract, worth $17m a year, with Spotless Services to provide integrated facilities management and hotel services across the two sites. It is the first contract of its kind in New Zealand.

The first challenge for the shared project was to ensure that services were maintained when the new contract took effect on 1 August 2010.

Jeff Small, the Group Manager, Commercial Support Service at MidCentral DHB and Brian Walden, the General Manager, Strategic Development at Whanganui DHB have both reported that it was a well managed and seamless transition by Spotless for both DHB's and all services have been maintained during the change over.

There will be incremental changes over the next nine months that will result in improved level of service and cost efficiencies.

The contract allows both district health boards to focus on patient care and service quality while spotless provide non-clinical and support services. Services include facilities management, engineering, grounds maintenance, patient and retail food, dietetic, transport and fleet management, cleaning, orderly and security.

Spotless have been providing services to MidCentral and Whanganui DHB's for over 10 years, however the new contract adopts a regional approach.

The integrated facilities management and hotel services contract is one of the initiatives that has arisen from the centralAlliance and is a good example of the excellent outcomes the DHB's can achieve together.