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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 6 Hansard (22 June) . . Page.. 1641 ..
Additional throughput pool ($3m per annum. since 1996-97) and CUT incentives
funding ($6m in 1998-99, $3m in each of 1999-2000 and 2000-01) to target long
waits for elective surgery;
Changes in purchasing practices. Example: purchasing most orthopaedic work at
the Calvary Hospital and contracting for some plastic and ophthalmic procedures
from private sector providers;
Re-directing public patients to common waiting lists where this is appropriate;
Refining the clinical priority assessment process;
Improving theatre utilisation. Example: each hospital has implemented a theatre
management system for common booking and management of theatre lists;
Improving hospital admission and discharge practices. Example: by implementing a
day of surgery admissions for elective surgery protocol;
Improving the management of waiting lists including regular audits of lists to
determine the status of persons on the list; and
Other major waiting list related initiatives such as development of a unique patient
identifier (the Patient Master Index), the Hospital in the Home Program, and
development of an ACT Health Services Plan.
The Department is currently working to bring together all these elements under an Elective Surgery Strategic Management Plan.
(3) Some $6m in CUT funding has been committed in this financial year towards the reduction of elective surgery waiting lists and it is currently planned that the balance of these funds be carried forward into future years to facilitate the development of longer term purchasing strategies to deal with the waiting list situation. Additional funding of $3m will be allocated from CUT funds in 1999-2000 and 2000-01 to bring total additional throughput funding to $6m in each of those years.
(4) As a result of targeting long wait patients seeking urgent elective surgery, I expect waiting lists for these patients to significantly reduce over time - this along with patient waiting times is our benchmark for measuring success or failure. My goal is to firstly have no one waiting longer than the clinically desirable time of 30 days in category one (most urgent cases). I am pleased to inform of some success in this regard - Calvary Public had only one long wait patient at the end of March 1999 and expects to report nil at the end of April. The Canberra Hospital too has made some good progress since December last year by reporting close to 50% reduction in category one long waits(from 40 at the end of Dec 1998 to 22 at the end of March).
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