The Auckland's health board has been condemned by a new report of the changeover of the lab test provider last year.

Last year in August, Diagnostic Medlab (DML) was replaced by Labtests as there were lodged 160 complaints against the former to the Health and Disability Commissioner.

The report was released by the Health Minister, which stroke a lash of criticism at the Auckland, Manukau and Waitemata health boards as they failed to carry out effective planning and consultation.

The board didn't understand completely service offered by Medlabs and the service that was tendered was a basic one. During the changeover process, there were faced many difficulties by Labtests that led to 10% of the contract going back to DML. Lab tests were just given four weeks to carry on the new role, which certainly made the situation worse as the provider was entitled to perform 23,000 laboratory tests per day.

"The detail of the contract was insufficient for the new provider to hit the ground running, and that was reflected in the outcome", said Graeme Milne, review co-author.

The changeover was also blotched due to the absence of adequate leadership and non-attentiveness of senior managers of Auckland's district health boards.