Page 173 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 8 December 2004
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Now I would like to turn to the issue of strategic planning in clinical services. The government has committed to the establishment of a total of 20 new medical beds for the ACT’s public hospital system over the next 18 months. Provisionally, the allocation of these beds involves 12 new beds at Calvary and eight new beds at the Canberra Hospital. Work has commenced to ensure that this target is met and that our election commitment is implemented.
The number of overall beds is only one point for consideration in meeting demand for acute services. There needs to be a concerted consideration of bed equivalents and effective access to available beds. We have commenced the bed access study to identify the barriers to efficient bed utilisation, based on the work undertaken by the National Health Service in the United Kingdom.
Our initiatives to date include:
• the establishment of a rapid response team and an ED rapid assessment team to reduce waiting times in the emergency department;
• opening three additional intensive care beds at the Canberra Hospital;
• opening discharge lounges at the Canberra and Calvary hospitals.
Just in: since August this year, we have seen 400 patients pass through the Canberra Hospital discharge lounge. In early 2004, ACT Health began developing a draft clinical services plan to guide the future delivery of public hospital services and to identify guiding principles for the future delivery of community health services.
The plan was released for public comment in June this year. As a result of that consultation and meetings with representative groups, further development of the plan is now under way and a second draft of the plan will be completed early in the New Year. In order to inform the second draft of the plan, as well as service projections and plans, an acute care forecasting model is now being developed. The model will use data relating to demographics, system capacity, work force and demand factors and will enable scenario or “what if” projections. This will allow us to get better information on the overall capacity our system needs to provide into the future.
The government is also focusing very strongly on service and facility planning. Our projects include contribution to further work on finalising the design of the 60-bed sub-acute facility on the Calvary campus; guidance and support on the completion of the feasibility study for replacement of intensive care facilities at the Calvary Hospital; guidance and support to Mental Health ACT, particularly in the provision of a high-security facility, and a facility to replace the psychiatric services unit at the Canberra Hospital.
The government is also working towards the completion of feasibility studies relating to the establishment of a centre of surgical excellence in the ACT, another key government election commitment. The centre will introduce three technologies to the ACT and will make us the first or the second jurisdiction in the country to have this available. The technologies are: robotic surgery, dedicated laparoscopy theatres and a surgical simulation laboratory.
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