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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 1 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 84 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

for greater integration of services, particularly between our two public hospitals, the Canberra and Calvary public hospitals.

The strategic directions for health promotion in the ACT will be launched. The strategy will include specific programs for health priority areas, a health promotion gateway and health promotion research into scholarship and research programs.

The Ted Noffs Foundation will operate a four-bed youth detoxification service in addition to the existing 10-bed rehabilitation service. This is a most important facility. since it will provide a seamless transition from detoxification, which is just the first stage of treatment, to rehabilitation for young people wishing to give up illicit drugs. The facility should therefore be ready for opening in January 2002.

In recognition of the ageing of our population, the government will commence a planning study into the need for enhanced rehabilitation, older persons' mental health and post-hospitalisation care facilities in the ACT. We know there are service gaps in the ACT resulting in disjointed service delivery, people being transferred interstate and people remaining in hospital with nowhere to go. We are committed to fixing these problems and to do that most effectively we need an accurate picture of current and future needs.

The nurse practitioner trial will be completed early in the new year. Early indications show that the trials have been beneficial for both patient care and enhancing nursing career paths.

The government will improve elective surgery waiting lists. Through better staffing practices and more efficient management, we will increase the throughput of surgical patients. We will also ensure a more consumer friendly management of waiting lists by employing elective surgery access coordinators at the Canberra Hospital and Calvary Public Hospital.

The ACT government has an open commitment to improving quality and safety in hospitals. As a demonstration of this commitment, a consumer feedback project will commence in January 2002. The aim is to involve consumers in all levels of health care through the establishment of partnerships to ensure a responsive and appropriate health service.

The Australian incident monitoring system introduces a clinical adverse event reporting and monitoring system across the health portfolio. It is planned to produce trended reports early in 2002 that will identify patterns of adverse incidents in the ACT. These patterns will identify target areas for a territory-wide as well as an institution-based focus to minimise system issues in health. AIMS has just gone live across the ACT health system.

There are health objectives that will take a little longer to achieve, but my government is committed to working to achieve them. Labor announced in April this year that we would allocate additional significant funds to the public dental health program, a commitment matched by the then government, which allocated an additional $1.5 million over four years to the program. Labor will maintain this additional funding and actively participate in the development of a national oral health strategy. We will

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