Page 1090 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 30 March 2011
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This is true and it is reflected on page 19 of the report. It may be that that is also telling in that there are many people presenting to the emergency department who may not need to be there. There are limited resources in the health system and, unfortunately, not every presentation can receive immediate attention.
What we really need in the ACT is more GPs, quite obviously, to attend to those less urgent cases. I acknowledge that the nurse practitioner walk-in clinic is an excellent initiative. I note that in my amendment. I believe it is something we should acknowledge. Those sorts of initiatives will have an impact on waiting times. Paragraph (1)(b)(vii) states:
the Emergency Department access block did not meet targets and had deteriorated for mental health clients …
Access block in particular does raise more of a concern than some of the other statistics do. I do not think we have talked about this for quite some time. It is one of those things we need to have more discussion about. Paragraph (1)(c) of the motion states:
that throughout the extensive Minister’s Foreword, and her accompanying press release, the Minister did not make mention of any deterioration in performance measures, despite the report showing that more than half of the performance categories measured have deteriorated …
It is true that the minister did not mention the areas of deterioration, but I do not agree fully with the statement “the report showing that more than half of the performance categories measured have deteriorated”. When we looked at elective surgery and the emergency department, we took the performance measures to be about fifty-fifty. When we examined all of the measures for all of the quarterly report we took it as being just over a 50 per cent—something more like 55 per cent—improvement and a 45 per cent deterioration. Some performance measures are more important than others, or more high profile than others, and the analysis of the performance measures could probably do with some weighting. This is about looking at accurate statistics. That is why I have mentioned outcome measures. Paragraph (1)(d) of Mr Hanson’s motion states:
that the Minister’s claim of the report showing better access to care is false, uses selective data, and is intentionally misleading …
We obviously have different views on this across the Assembly. The statistics are not false, but there is selective data—just like there is, I think, in the motion. I will be moving an amendment that reflects this. The government talks about doing record levels of surgery. I imagine people would expect that to be the obvious case: as the population increases, as does income to government. It is the job of the government to look at this.
I do not think the minister was intentionally intending to mislead any more than Mr Hanson was. We could have an argument about that. I do not think the minister has been trying to intentionally mislead with those statements. Mr Hanson has left
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