Page 4338 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 27 November 2013
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bet you that there would be more than 2,000 additional people put on the elective surgery waiting list.
In the first four months of this year there have been 4,094 elective surgery procedures, which is five per cent above the result for the same period last year. This shows that we are on track to exceed 11,000 procedures again. If we put all of that in perspective, in our first full year of government, the elective surgery procedures were at 7,661. We have increased that by 44 per cent over 10 years. Despite there being only a 17 per cent increase in population, we have ramped up our elective surgery by 44 per cent to deal with the demand that is being generated. We are also looking at private sector partners and at Queanbeyan to improve the way we provide elective surgery. Indeed, the appointment of Dr Mitchell will help us look at those arrangements and advise us on the most efficient way of cementing those arrangements.
Overall, I think that the Leader of the Opposition has to work out whether he is going to beat up the ACT government for not meeting targets, for not improving the median wait time, for not meeting category 1 or 2 or 3 or for not dealing with the long waits or he is going to listen to the voice of the VMOA. He cannot have it both ways. He cannot criticise the government for not delivering results that are equal to other jurisdictions and then when we do implement the systems that deliver those results, systems that are used across Australia, we are then criticised for doing that. He then says that the focus should actually be on just allowing the people waiting longest on the list to be removed and only them, which actually drives poorer performance and poorer outcomes for more people on the list.
In relation to the allegation that there has been a history of manipulating and doctoring data and tampering with data, that is simply not correct. There is one case where I think you can accuse me of that where it has been proven to be true. That is in the emergency department. In relation to the audit that was done by the Auditor-General around the re-categorisation of patients on the elective surgery waiting list, contrary to what Mr Hanson has just argued, where he said that there was evidence that essentially that lists were being manipulated and categories were being manipulated, the Auditor-General did not find that. She did find that the paperwork was not in order. She did not find an example where a doctor had not approved a downgrade or an upgrade.
I notice you do not use the information in the audit report about the upgrades that occurred. What she did say is that the paperwork was not in order. That has been fixed to the degree that it can be. Most of that is about doctors signing forms. That audit did not deliver one extra operation and it did not prove what Mr Hanson alleges in his speech, that there was manipulation, doctoring and tampering of the elective surgery waiting list. It is simply not true.
I will accept the allegation that there has been an issue in the emergency department where the timeliness data was tampered with. We are fully aware of that case. But I will not accept it across any other area in health because it is simply not true. When you look at the range of data and the assessment and the quality assurance process that goes around that data, we provide data to the AIHW, the National Health Performance Authority, the National Health Preventative Agency, the Independent Hospital Pricing
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