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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (17 February) . . Page.. 271 ..

Given the extent of this serious problem, can the Minister confirm that significant numbers of patients at Canberra Hospital have been referred to other institutions for surgery? Can the Minister tell the Assembly whether records are kept of the rate of referral of private patients to Calvary, John James and the National Capital Hospital, and whether or not patients so referred include workers compensation and Veterans' Affairs patients? I realise the Chief Minister is answering questions for the Minister today and that these questions do require some detail, but I would also be interested in the ratio of public patients to private patients at the Canberra Hospital and the impact of that ratio on the hospital's budget.

MS CARNELL: I am sure that Mr Moore will give more information on this if necessary. There is no doubt that the financial figures at the hospital continue to be a concern for the Government, as they probably have been for just about every ACT government over the last 10 years and for every government everywhere in Australia. Mr Moore is not here in question time today because there is a hook-up of Health Ministers around Australia, with Mr Moore attempting to achieve a better financial outcome for the people of the ACT and also, with State Health Ministers, looking at the way the States may handle the Senate inquiry, simply because the problem in health around Australia is so endemic.

Mr Speaker, I understand that the December year-to-date financial report for the Canberra Hospital showed an operating loss before abnormal items of $16.8m, which exceeds budget by $3.7m. After abnormal expenses and operating injections, the loss for the period was $2.2m worse than the budget for the hospital. The unfavourable year-to-date performance is due to unfavourable variances in both revenue and expenditure. The year-to-date revenue is $1.6m below budget, mainly due to a lower than budgeted private patient and compensatable revenue figure.

Year-to-date expenses were $2.1m above budget, mainly due to higher than expected employee expenses, $1.6m, as a result of delays in implementing organisational improvement plans, and to higher administration expenses, $0.9m. The full year result is projected to be $6m worse than budget. This is a significant improvement on the $10m overrun as at December 1998 and reflects the reductions which have been made in hospital expenditure.

The hospital board and its executive are currently reviewing the level of expenses to ensure that planned rectification measures are fully implemented. The rectification measures initiated in 1998-99 form the basis of a comprehensive organisational improvement plan aimed at realising significant improvements over two years, with full year improvements in financial performance for 2000-01. Additional opportunities for improvement will be substantially guided by findings of the clinical best practice review and the financial opportunities steering committee.

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