Page 4020 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 23 November 1993
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when we started to move. The opening of the clinic in Civic and the approval of four community pharmacies have further expanded access, although I do not think the community pharmacy access has been as successful as first anticipated; but that remains to be seen.
The early intervention service is another area recognised in discussions with the committee. It is a readily accessible service with no waiting time for admission. In addition, in 1993-94 ACT Health, through a Commonwealth special education grant, will implement a family centred support program to work with families of young children with a severe disability. The committee also raised questions of tuberculosis reporting and legislation. I am pleased to note that, as a result of the discussions with officers from my department at the Estimates Committee hearings, Mrs Carnell has agreed not to seek the repeal of the Tuberculosis Act until the Public Health Act has been modernised to address the issues currently addressed in the Tuberculosis Act.
One other matter that I would like to just refer to, Madam Speaker, is the issue of the cost structure within the ACT public health system relative to national averages of diagnostic related groups. The study referred to, the KPMG study, was the first national initiative of its type in Australia. The data is still being analysed, but there are many limitations in that data - - -
Mrs Carnell: Every other State is very happy.
MR BERRY: Mrs Carnell says, "Every other State is happy", but they probably do not have somebody like her misinforming the community about the real picture. Comparisons between States and Territory are always easy to do when the numbers appear good or bad. The reality is, however, that it is not sensible - dealing with things in a nonsensical way is something that comes pretty easily to you - to compare the KPMG costs between States and Territories, especially for the ACT. As pointed out in the KPMG report:
Tables derived from a small number of hospitals or data for DRGs with a small number of separations should be interpreted with extreme care.
Not so for the Liberals. They do not interpret anything with extreme care; they just go ahead full bore. Furthermore, differences in data definitions, data quality and economies of scale make comparisons between States and Territory misleading, but that has never bothered the Liberals either. That study was set up so that the methodologies - - -
Mrs Carnell: So it is all wrong?
MR BERRY: No, I am not saying that at all. I am saying that it is the first time that this information has been collected and there is some question about the data. You knew about that, but you have used it to death - - -
Mrs Carnell: It is our data.
MR BERRY: I am sorry. The data in the ACT, according to the people who collected it, should not be used to compare it with what goes on in other States, because it is data which is unreliable. Of course, the study was set up so that methodologies could be developed to provide each State and Territory with a standardised approach to monitoring and making decisions about health
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