Page 1877 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 7 June 2006
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department, the rapid streaming of emergency patients to care zones consisting of multidisciplinary teams aligned to patient needs, reinforced leadership roles with a focus on managing the end-to-end patient journey through the emergency department, and expedited assessment of the older patient presenting to the emergency department to identify those at risk of rapid deterioration, and those patients will then be quickly streamed to an area designed for their needs.
The ACT has recorded some achievements, highlighted in the national mental health report 2005 released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, in the provision of mental health services to the community. The ACT recorded the highest per capita spending on community health services, at $76 against the average of $51. The ACT came a very close second to Victoria with regard to the highest percentage of funding for total mental health services being spent in the community services sector, at 11.4 per cent against the national average of 6.2 per cent. The ACT recorded the highest level of services externally assessed with level 1 implementation of the national standards for mental health services, and the highest level of consumer/care consultants employed per 1,000 clinicians. We also had higher than average mental health supported public housing places per 1,000 population.
We acknowledge that there are a number of challenges that we still have to face in the provision of health services to our community, but our commitment to that is reflected in this year’s budget and cannot be doubted. There is a lot of work to do around the provision of mental health services and I have had some initial discussions with consumer groups about that. I accept that that will be a big piece of work for me in the next year.
Mr Speaker, this is not just about throwing money at the health system and hoping that it will get better. Detailed work has gone into looking at the growth in demand for services, some of which is outlined in the budget papers, and it is showing that the demand for acute services is growing at eight per cent, cancer services are growing at, I think, eight per cent, and community and public health services are growing at between two and three per cent. We know that the demand for services is growing and part of meeting that demand is having additional money there to provide those services.
The government has taken the decision of increasing the health budget through the budget announced yesterday. At the same time—I am sure that Mr Smyth will support this because it goes to some of what he has been saying—we are not saying that it can keep growing at the way it has been growing in past years. We need to control that growth. We need to draw a line in the sand. The forward estimates will have, on average, a 6.4 per cent growth. That is considerably less than has been provided in the past, when they have been growing by 10 or 11 per cent. That will require changes to how services are delivered. It will require benchmarking our back-end functions.
Mr Smyth: But how are you going to achieve that?
MS GALLAGHER: By looking at management and administrative support positions, not looking at the front-line positions. There is a capacity there to reduce costs in an attempt to rein in costs. We are acknowledging that we are not going to be able to provide the kind of health system that the community expects and deserves if we bring it back to national levels or the average national expenditure on health. We are setting
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