Page 3852 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007
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One of the issues we have been working on in terms of dealing with access block, and which I did not mention in my previous answer, is to make sure our bed occupancy levels are not at the point where they have been in the past, which has been at 97, 98 and 99 per cent. The latest figures I saw showed bed occupancy averaging out at about 91 per cent. We are heading for a target of 85 per cent, but I should say it is a target. We have not reached that yet. But this is part of the process of making sure we have beds available in the hospital for people to travel through, leave the acute area of the emergency department and go into the hospital. That is something in which we have been seeing pleasing results.
The hospital is busy—Canberra Hospital particularly, but Calvary is not an exception in that regard. At times when bed occupancy levels have risen and we have not been able to have the amount of free beds in the other part of the hospital, it will place pressure on the emergency department. If that can be alleviated by using some of the EMU beds, under appropriate clinical guidelines and processes, I do not have a problem with that.
MR SPEAKER: Is there a supplementary question?
MRS BURKE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the minister for the answer. Given that the EMU beds are for 23 hours or less, what impact will changes made to both the acute care area and the EMU have on the collection of statistical data in relation to access block and fast track?
MS GALLAGHER: I think, reading behind the lines, the question is: are we fudging some of the data around access block because we are shifting people into the EMU and therefore they are not part of the access—
Mrs Burke: You said it, not me.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MS GALLAGHER: No, I am getting to the point of your question. You could have asked, “Are you fudging the figures, minister?”
Mrs Burke: I have before.
MR SPEAKER: It is not a conversation; it is questions without notice.
MS GALLAGHER: I have now got the point. I thought Mrs Burke was actually interested in how it all operates, but it is not that at all.
Mrs Burke: Of course I am.
MS GALLAGHER: It is not that at all. The reports that we provide around access block are nationally consistent. We take reporting very seriously indeed, Mrs Burke, in making sure that our reports are accurate. So I totally reject the underlying insinuation that we are fudging the figures. Unless she can come up with anything
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