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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 1 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 83 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

The government has a number of immediate objectives in health. In keeping with our commitment, the government will immediately allocate an additional $6 million from the second appropriation to the Canberra Hospital to support hospital services. This additional funding will help the hospital meet increased demand and allow for the employment of additional nurses. We will also enhance cancer services across the ACT through the purchase of additional diagnostic and treatment equipment.

We promised to begin immediately enterprise agreement negotiations with the nurses on coming to office. To that end, I instructed the chief executive of the hospital to use his best endeavours to resolve the long-running dispute. Under the former government, negotiations with the Australian Nursing Federation were unnecessarily protracted and acrimonious.

The government will provide interim financial assistance to community organisations to help them meet the increased staffing costs of the social and community services award and other similar awards.

The post-school options program for young graduates with a disability will open for business, accepting applications and assessing client needs. The program is designed to help young people with a disability make the transition from school to work or other occupational programs.

Just last week at Morling Lodge I opened a residential care service to meet the needs of older people leaving hospital. The service is jointly funded by the Commonwealth and will provide 11 beds in a pilot program. We are also working with the Council on the Ageing, the Aged Health Care Services Advisory Council, the Older Women's Network and other groups to complement the Morling Lodge initiative by developing a convalescence service for people requiring only a few days of rehabilitation before returning home. A facility at Chapman is being assessed for its suitability. The ACT Department of Health and Community Care will engage a consultant to undertake a comprehensive needs analysis of respite care needs for older Canberrans.

To help provide a more strategic response to the associated problems of illicit drug use and crime, the ACT police early intervention and diversion program will begin this month. The program aims to divert people in the early stages of illicit drug use into appropriate treatment and rehabilitation services. The program is partly funded by the Commonwealth.

In the medium term, the government also has a number of significant objectives in health. My government will host a broad and open health summit next February to identify and seek to resolve the many issues facing the public health system in the ACT. The summit will examine issues across the ACT as a whole and will include representatives from the hospitals, from the health professions, from the health and nursing unions and from the community. I will use the outcomes from the summit to inform further reform and to feed into the development of a new health plan for the ACT.

Coming out of the summit, I expect to develop an action plan for health. The plan will be developed following an extensive consultation process. It will set out future directions for health care in the ACT. It will examine current and future demand and pave the way

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