Page 2480 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 9 August 2016
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people ask, “Where are our rates being spent?” There is an amount of $50 million over four years for better and more tailored health services.
This will include 60 new health staff at the new secure mental health unit, which will open this financial year. We will also provide $3 million to establish a young people’s mental health treatment team for young Canberrans experiencing, or at high risk of developing, a serious mental illness. I know that this is a matter of interest to members on both sides of the chamber. It is very important that we invest more in the capability of our mental health services to meet new and emerging mental health concerns amongst young people in our community.
We will also provide $500,000 to boost community mental health services and suicide prevention services provided in the non-government sector. These are all great examples of the investment this government is making in better mental health services for our city.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Hinder.
MR HINDER: Minister, can you please outline to the Assembly how the government is improving access to timely care in the ED and what investments the government has made in the ED as part of the 2016-17 budget?
MR CORBELL: I thank Mr Hinder for his supplementary. As I have said before in this place, providing better access, more timely access, to care, particularly in the emergency department and when it comes to elective surgery, has been one of my priorities as health minister over the past couple of years. I am pleased to say that we continue to see very positive results. This is partly due to an increase in capacity, an increase in resources, in the emergency department.
We will invest, as a Labor government, $29 million over the next four years to increase the treatment capacity and the number of staff in the Canberra Hospital emergency department. That will see 39 additional staff in 2016-17, rising to a total of 54 additional staff in 2019-20. This will include 24 additional ED nurses, 10 new allied health workers and one new administrative position for the ED. This is particularly important as we expand the overall capacity of our emergency department.
We are of course also very focused on improving processes and timeliness inside the ED so that more people get the care they need within the national time frames. As part of this, I am pleased to say that we have seen significant improvements. The average wait time in the Canberra Hospital emergency department improved by 14 per cent between 1 March and 27 June this year and the average treatment time dropped by 34 minutes. That is at a time when the average daily presentation rate continues to grow.
Now, with a significant expansion of the ED well and truly underway that will increase the number of beds in the ED by over 30 per cent. With the extra doctors, nurses and allied health staff that we are employing and with the reform agenda that is underway, I am confident we will continue to see better improvements. (Time expired.)
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