Page 1961 - Week 06 - Friday, 6 May 2005
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the elderly. Typically, falls are the first step in the loss of independence and wellbeing for older people. This program will assist in identifying and overcoming the main causes of falls in the elderly. We are also investing in quality and patient safety infrastructure. We have allocated $500,000 in 2005-06, increasing to $900,000 each year from 2006-07.
I, like the rest of us here, am always amazed at the level of service and commitment provided by our doctors, nurses and allied health staff and other health staff every day. The additional investment in quality infrastructure is a way of further supporting their drive to provide the best possible health care services to the people of the ACT. This initiative will provide for the identification of areas where errors are made in our public hospitals, such as in the provision of medications and with hospital-acquired infections, and the development of programs and mechanisms to address, reduce and eliminate these problems. Lapses in safety systems and errors in health care can and do harm patients. Such lapses can also lead to readmissions and extended stays in our hospitals. Improving quality and safety infrastructure is good for patients and it also reduces pressure on scarce resources. That is why the government is investing in this area.
Let me turn now to the issue of enhancing capacity in acute care. At the heart of the budget is provision for an additional 20 medical beds at an annual cost of $2.3 million in the first year, growing to $3.02 million in subsequent years. This will enable more timely transfer of patients from emergency departments to wards and provide the additional bed base needed to reduce pressure on elective surgery waiting lists. Extra bed capacity enables us to achieve a more efficient flow of patients from the time of their admission through each phase of treatment, right through to their return home, with follow-up care in the community if needed.
Our public hospitals often run at bed occupancy levels approaching 100 per cent. While at times of peak demand this can be unavoidable, it is in the interests of patient and staff safety and overall efficiency that occupancy in our hospitals be maintained at a level of 90 per cent. Running our hospitals at or below this level provides hospitals with some reserve capacity for unexpected peaks in demand. It also recognises that pressure on our medical, nursing and support staff increases significantly when the system runs at full capacity for extended periods of time. That is why we are making this realistic and sensible investment in additional beds.
We have also allocated $250,000 for the permanent funding of discharge lounges at both Calvary and Canberra hospitals. These will also assist in maintaining overall hospital occupancy and activity levels at our targeted rate of 90 per cent or less. The initiative releases additional capacity into the system. It also assists with the smooth flow of patients from hospital wards to home through facilitating effective discharge planning.
The additional investment we have already made over our last term in relation to elective surgery has ensured that over 1,300 more people have been able to access elective surgery since we came to government than otherwise would have been the case. The 2005-06 budget provides further capacity through an additional $2 million for elective surgery in the subsequent years. This will provide access to elective surgery for an additional 300 patients in 2005-06, rising to 400 in 2006-07. Consistent with our policy focus on timely access to acute care based on clinical need, this funding will be focused on those patients classified as “long waits”. These are patients waiting in excess of the benchmark waiting time based on the urgency of their condition.
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