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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 9 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 3315 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

As to the concern that particular specialists performances will become apparent, if there is some problem that prevents a particular specialist performing as much surgery as they had intended, I would have thought it would be useful to be able to identify that.

The patient information bulletins are put together by the hospitals-in the case of Calvary, by their clinical performance and evaluation unit and, in the case of TCH, by the information analyst in the management and information support unit. Their original purpose is to inform hospital management-and so lead to improvements in the service-if the data show that, where there are problematic reductions in surgery, there is also a problem with the bandaging budget, so the bandage budget needs to be increased, or that there are staff shortages. We all know the kinds of things that reduce the ability of the hospital to deal with the needs of the community.

The information is already put together and is already classified for external release. The issue here is whether it is tabled or put into the Assembly library. Tabling means that members' attention is drawn to the available information and that the bulletins are available immediately, without the need to go and photocopy from a book in the library. This is a practical consideration. We all know the difference between having on our shelves a set of data, comparable over the year or the last few years, versus going up to the library to copy, which takes time many of us do not have.

Mr Corbell also asks us to note that the ACT Health website will be amended to include all information in the monthly waiting list report, as well as quarterly waiting times for all specialities. That is good news. I am happy to note this in the debate but would prefer to formally note in the motion the Assembly's desire for this information to be tabled.

Point 4 notes that the waiting list information prepared by the Stanhope government provides more information and is more accurate. I have heard Mr Corbell argue for this, but I still cannot really support that. If the auditing practice has improved the validity of the statistics, that is a very good thing and the government should be congratulated.

The government's new form of waiting list report includes a bit more descriptive analysis and some additional comments on what the government has recently done. For example, in the report on the June 2003 waiting lists, it is noted that the government provided an additional $500,000 to Calvary Hospital for major joint surgery. That connects to the individual cases of long waits described. That is useful and could easily be an addition to the patient activity report and/or the waiting list data requested in Mr Smyth's motion.

The presentation of the data in a time-series graph does show the monthly fluctuations and is useful additional analysis. But this is an amalgamated report, which does not show the average waiting time for each speciality, nor the average length of wait for people whose surgery is not scheduled within the recommended time for their urgency category. So it is not an appropriate replacement.

The government's suggestion is that the reports be tabled on the next sitting day. That sounds like a fine timeframe for tabling but refers only to waiting lists, not to the patient information bulletins. I believe that the original motion, with my amendment, will achieve this same outcome. I thank Mr Smyth for bringing this matter back to the

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