Page 1511 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 June 2007
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What is wrong with Canberra? Is the business base that delivers health service too small for its client base? Are the health business process and the engineering of health services working efficiently and effectively? There are two keywords again—“efficiently” and “effectively”. Are the management and leadership of ACT health services working in an integrated and unified way to deliver flexible service outcomes to their client base? The question remains: how can the Canberra community continue to trust the Stanhope government to manage our health system with vision, foresight and a customer driven focus?
Finally, the evidence of the AIHW report measures the deficiency of the ACT health system from a politically managed perspective. It is time for the Stanhope government to take responsibility for the substandard health outcomes reported by the AIHW and demonstrate to the Canberra community that it has the leadership and management capacity to turn the health sector around. A team must have a winning game plan. The Stanhope government must demonstrate that it has a winning health game plan. I commend this motion to the Assembly.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Minister for Health, Minister for Children and Young People, Minister for Disability and Community Services, Minister for Women) (5.16): I welcome the opportunity to have ongoing dialogue around the performance of our public health system, including the recent Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report that was released last week. The government will not be supporting Mrs Burke’s motion, but we will be supporting an amendment which will be circulated shortly. I have stopped short of congratulating the government on our tremendous performance, but it does list—
Members interjecting—
MS GALLAGHER: I was trying to be humble. I think there is more work to be done, to be up-front with you. I think there is more work to be done. But I would also like to talk about the positive things that were found—things that occur every day in our public hospital system. I would like to talk about the positive aspects of the AIHW report.
The report, as I have said, outlined the fact that, against a national decrease in bed numbers, the ACT saw a 5.4 per cent increase in bed numbers. That is welcome. For the first time, the relative stay index, which is a measure of the efficiency of the public health system—I know Mrs Burke is interested in this—was below one, where one indicates that a patient’s length of stay is a good outcome and anything longer indicates inefficiency. That is below one for the first time—down from 1.02 in 2004-05 and 1.05 in 2003-04. It also shows that we are removing inefficiency in the system. I think both sides of politics will agree that that existed, particularly in administration and management. We have seen big reductions in this reporting period—down to about 14 per cent above average—and we are heading to a target of 10 per cent above average.
The AIHW report also shows that we led the country in potentially avoidable hospitalisations. That is linked to vaccine-preventable conditions and admissions for
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