Noting that there have been a series of complaints related to the way in which Auckland's medical laboratory services provider, Labtests, is delivering its $70 million per year contract, Dr Michael Coglin - the chief medical officer of Labtests' Australian parent company Healthscope - has assured that the company is throwing resources into solving the problems.

Labtests, managing 10,000 patients and 30,000 tests per day, won an eight-year, $560 million dollar contract ahead of Diagnostic Medlabs Limited (DML) - the contract pertained to taking and testing blood and other samples from patients around the Auckland area.

However, Labtests acknowledged it failure to carry out the contract in some aspects, largely because it was focusing too much on the physical establishment of the laboratory in Mt Wellington, and also because the collection rooms were scattered around Auckland. As such, there were some reported communication issues between clinicians and doctors.

With the company having apologized for its reported failings, Coglin said: "I don't think there's anything with our service that can't be fixed and fixed quickly and I think that's a view shared from the Prime Minister of New Zealand down."

Labtests has replaced its Auckland CEO, Ulf Lindskog, with Paul Waterson, Heathscope's chief operating officer for pathology. In addition, Auckland's three District Health Boards have appointed six representatives, vested with executive authority, at the new diagnostic laboratory service.