Page 310 - Week 01 - Thursday, 29 November 2012
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Auditor-General Act—Auditor-General’s Report No. 1/2011—Waiting Lists for Elective Surgery and Medical Treatment—Progress report No 3 on achievements against recommendations, dated August 2012.
I seek leave to make a statement in relation to the paper.
Leave granted.
MS GALLAGHER: I table the third progress report on the implementation of recommendations in the Auditor-General’s report No 1 of 2011, Waiting lists for elective surgery and medical treatment.
This report provides members with details about the considerable work already undertaken within the Health Directorate to improve the administrative management of waiting lists for surgery and medical treatment. Importantly, the report also notes the considerable improvement in access to elective surgery in the ACT and the reduction in numbers of people waiting too long for care.
A substantial amount of work and effort has gone into improving access to elective surgery, which is something the Auditor-General’s report did not address—its focus was on the management of elective surgery and the processes.
The Health Directorate has implemented a number of initiatives to address the recommendations of the report, including: the establishment of consistent forms in relation to access to elective surgery across both hospitals; regular auditing of booking and listing practices to ensure that ACT policies are followed at both hospitals; increased accountability for processes through oversight of local audit reports by the surgical services task force; implementation of a set of new standard operating procedures and associated manuals to guide staff in the listing and management of patients on waiting lists; improved management of leave arrangements for surgeons to minimise delays for patients; and the establishment of a steering committee to identify issues with access to outpatient services and to direct projects to fix those issues.
The surgical services task force is provided with regular reports on progress against the Auditor-General’s recommendations, which provides oversight that extends beyond the managers responsible for the delivery of elective surgery.
The reports provide evidence of the improvements that were already in place in 2001 to improve access to elective surgery, as well as those that I have introduced since to improve access to care. Those initiatives include ways of increasing access to surgery by adding capacity to our public hospital system and through arrangements with the private sector.
During the 2010-11 financial year our public hospitals were undertaking record levels of elective surgery operations. In 2010-11 we provided 11,336 elective surgery operations, over 1,500 more than the previous year. The number of people waiting longer than recommended waiting times fell by 37 per cent over the 2010-11 financial year, and the proportion of total patients admitted on time has increased from 65 per cent in 2009-10 to almost 72 per cent for the first half of 2011-12.
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