Page 802 - Week 02 - Thursday, 23 February 2012
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exposure draft outlined that the government should apply the same principles as private operators when accounting for service concession arrangements. Accordingly, this resulted in the termination of negotiations involving the territory purchasing the hospital as the territory no longer needed to purchase the asset in order to account for it. Being able to account for the asset was a motivating factor in the negotiations for the territory, as it was important that the territory be able to recognise the asset of the public hospital and its continuing capital contributions to the asset.
There were a number of issues throughout the negotiations with Little Company of Mary Health Care, and not only was Little Company of Mary Health Care’s withdrawal from the in-principle agreement a major setback for the territory, but the change in accounting standards had significant impacts on the territory’s ability as well as the ability of Little Company of Mary Health Care to continue negotiating.
The government recently announced the expansion of hospital services on the north side of Canberra as part of the health infrastructure program, including the delivery of a third hospital, this being a subacute facility. As part of the decision to build a new subacute facility in northern Canberra, it was agreed that Calvary Public Hospital would continue to operate as the second acute hospital in the ACT.
It is neither possible, nor appropriate, to run two acute hospitals in the ACT that provide the same level of services. Therefore, Canberra Hospital will remain the major tertiary referral centre and Calvary hospital will provide general acute services that support the operation of the Canberra Hospital whilst at the same time meeting the general acute care needs of residents in northern Canberra.
Based on this, it was agreed that the most appropriate way forward with Little Company of Mary Health Care was to proceed with the development of new agreements which will enable Calvary to continue as an acute care public hospital provider within a network of facilities within the ACT. Little Company of Mary Health Care agreed with this approach and negotiations on the agreement commenced.
The previous set of agreements which were in use until 1 February 2010 between the territory and Calvary Health Care ACT are quite dated, dating back to October 1971, and there was a critical need to progress with the development of new agreements. A new Calvary network agreement has been developed and is now in operation between the territory and Calvary Health Care ACT. There are four components to this agreement, including the Calvary network agreement, Bruce health care precinct deed, the deed of variation of private hospital arrangements and the Calvary Public Hospital agreement.
The Calvary network agreement has been developed to improve the quality of and access to healthcare in the ACT; acknowledge Calvary’s commitment to the ongoing management and operation of the public hospital and the provision of high-quality, positive patient experience; record the parties’ agreement that Calvary will operate the public hospital as a network service provider; acknowledge the territory’s obligations to allocate funds to Calvary for the delivery of the services at the public hospital; maintain funding for the services while ensuring the most efficient and effective use of the funding; provide extraordinary or special funding by the territory to Calvary;
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