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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1432 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

definitions are applied to assist with compiling comparative national data. The review found that there were problems with internal reporting in relation to the definitions of "not ready for care" and "reason for removal of patients from waiting lists". I will table, for the interest of members, those particular national data entries. There they are.

Mr Speaker, "not ready for care" patients are those who are not in a position to accept an offer of hospital admission, for either personal or medical reasons. Prior to January 1997 these patients were not included in the total waiting list numbers but were included in the specialty figures at the Canberra Hospital. This data has now been adjusted to reflect the appropriate definitions.

With regard to the definition of "reason for removal", the national health data dictionary specifies the criteria for removing patients from the waiting lists. Examples of these criteria are that they have already been admitted; that they could not be contacted; that they have been treated somewhere else; or that the treatment is assessed as no longer being required. Internal reporting systems have now been adjusted to reflect this, Mr Speaker. An example could have been that a patient was admitted but not for the condition that they were on the waiting list for. Such patients were sometimes removed from the waiting list because they had been admitted. Obviously, that is not the approach that we wanted to take and that has now been fixed.

Mr Berry spoke about the surgical bookings procedures manual. Issues were also raised about the existing surgical bookings procedures manual being difficult to follow and that there was a need for it to be rewritten to detail various procedures involved in the maintenance of waiting lists. Mr Speaker, an officer has now been assigned to carry out implementation of these tasks and is working with staff from the relevant areas within the Canberra Hospital to achieve this end. Interestingly, while overall figures were understated due to the problems with the hospital's internal systems and practices, one problem identified was that some patients who had been treated may not have been removed from the list when they should have been. Things tended to go both ways, Mr Speaker.

While the hospital has recognised internal problems with its system and is dealing with them, we should not let this mask the real improvements that have occurred in the waiting lists over the last two years. Even though the waiting lists were revised upwards in January and February to correct internal problems, the trend subsequently is again going down, Mr Speaker, and I made this point in the house the other day. In March, between the Calvary and Canberra hospitals, there was an overall reduction of 168 from the end of February figure. This represents a 14.2 per cent drop, or a decrease of 645 people waiting for elective surgery since the Government was elected in March 1995. Further, I am advised that at the end of April the waiting list at the Canberra Hospital was reduced by a further 108 from the March 1997 figure.

Interestingly, while the Calvary waiting list increased by more than 100 over January 1997 compared to December 1996, it was not because of a definition or systems problem, but because of the traditional slowdown over the Christmas period. The problem that we had with reporting at Canberra Hospital did not run at Calvary Hospital as well.

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