The BMJ should extend its transparency protocol in light of example of King's Fund report on Canterbury, New Zealand

We read the King’s Fund report on Canterbury, New Zealand, and the related editorial in The BMJ last year with great interest.1 2 We write now because new information has come to light. Worried by what could be perceived as an overly positive report by the King’s Fund on the “impressive progress,” as the editorial described it, made by Canterbury, we asked under New Zealand’s Official Information Act about funding sources. The King’s Fund did not reveal these, and the editorial seems to have taken the fund’s findings as those of an independent evaluation. It now transpires that the Canterbury District Health Board paid £96 000 (NZ$186 000; €118 400; $161 230) for the report and, presumably, commissioned the King’s Fund to do it. By contrast, evaluations of four other New Zealand integration sites, more revealing in terms of the “progress” and challenges involved, were undertaken independently through the New Zealand Health Research Council.