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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (18 November) . . Page.. 4217 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

A consequence of this at the Calvary Hospital is that the real level of in-patient activity has fallen. The speed with which patients receive emergency services has also fallen. As a clear result, the people of Canberra have told this government that their level of satisfaction with the system has fallen sharply. An addendum has just been tabled, and I will go through the figures later-a typographical error has perhaps cleared up the dilemma on one level, but in terms of in-patients it certainly has not.

Across our hospital system, the level of surgical activity is falling and the number of people overdue for surgery is rising dramatically. Yet we have no sense of accountability from our minister about these results. He said recently in the Health Annual Report hearing that he is not responsible for targets; he is just responsible for the budget. The budget blew out by $38 million and had a $19 million operating loss. That is what he is responsible for. That is something to be proud of! Is he proud of not achieving targets?

We are beginning to see the inevitable side effect of this administrative restructure: a lack of attention to the underlying issues from both of the ministers-particularly the current minister-and a lack of effective management demanded by the minister from the bureaucracy to ensure that they deliver good outcomes for the people of Canberra. These results are undeniable, as I will detail throughout this speech.

At the same time, the cost of the health system is going up for the people of Canberra. Our government believed that the test of good management was to bring the most services to the public for every dollar spent. Under this government, health costs more but less is being achieved. The evidence? Let's look at five key areas. The first is total patient throughput.

The annual report for ACT Health clearly shows that the real level of in-patient activity at our major public hospital has fallen. Harking back to Labor's policy document from before the last election, they said that they were going to be more effective and more efficient, that they were going to ensure more people had more access and that there would be more operations. With this in mind, the Chief Minister put $6 million into Health, and what have we got? We have got less.

The level of in-patient activity achieved at the Canberra Hospital in 2002-03 fell from 39,258 to 38,432 cost-weighted separations-a drop of 2 per cent-at a time public demand was rising across Australia. Mr Corbell knows that with Calvary Hospital theatres closed for a quarter of last year, he cannot look to that area for better outcomes. This result can be seen in his own report, but we are yet to see Mr Corbell accept it publicly.

He goes to other activity measures, when he knows that the measure everybody is judged by is cost-weighted seps. I wonder whether Mr Corbell understands the importance of this result. I wonder whether Mr Corbell wants to be accountable for his lacklustre executive performance. I wonder whether he has the courage to stand up in this place and say, "I accept that in-patient activity at the hospital has fallen under Mr Stanhope's and under my administration"? Does he have the courage to say that? We will see.

I move on to surgery throughput, Mr Speaker. Members will recall-and I suggest no-one more vividly than you, as a former Labor health minister from the early 1990s-that

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