Page 658 - Week 02 - Thursday, 16 February 2017

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ENT Surgery (Otolaryngology)	9	Palliative Care	6
Gastroenterology & Hepatology	25	Pathology	51
General Medicine	33	Physician	6
General Practice	426	Plastic Surgery	6
General Surgery	27	Psychiatry	58
Geriatric medicine	12	Public Health Medicine	28
Haematology	9	Radiation Oncology	13
Immunology & Allergy	7	Radiology	50
Infectious Diseases	9	Rehabilitation medicine	6
Intensive Care Medicine	22	Respiratory & Sleep Medicine	10
Medical Administration	12	Rheumatology	8
Medical Oncology	10	Sexual Health Medicine	4
Nephrology	13	Sport and Exercise Medicine	11
Neurology	9	Urology	6
Neurosurgery	7	Vascular Surgery	4
Nuclear Medicine	9

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² Table 1 has been compiled using data from the AHPRA ACT Annual Report Summary 2015-16

2. ACT Health does not manage or track the practice of private specialists. ACT Health and the specialists it employs cannot close their books in a public hospital.

3. The wait times for specialists varies according to how critical the patient’s illness is. The wait lists are assessed for clinical urgency using a triage process. This process enables people with life threatening illness to have high priority access to the specialist.

Patients referred to an outpatient clinic are assigned a category of urgency, and every effort is made to provide a first appointment within the category target time. Patients who seek a more urgent appointment are required to provide a supporting referral from their doctor.

4. The National benchmarks for an initial outpatient appointment are:

• Triage Category 1:	within 30 days
• Triage Category 2:	within 90 days
• Triage Category 3:	within 365 days.

Patients who are considered clinically urgent are usually seen within 14 days.

5. ACT Health focus is on the public health system. The following gaps in specialist services have been identified within the public health system:

• Paediatric specialties including Clinical Genetics, Paediatric Ophthalmology, Paediatric Orthopaedic Surgery, and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

• Medical Specialties including Cardiac Electro-physiology, Neurology and Dermatology.

• Mental Health specialties including Addiction Medicine, Eating Disorders Psychiatry, Forensic Services, and Older Persons Mental Health.

• Surgical specialties including General Surgery, Urology, Ear, Nose & Throat surgery, Colorectal Surgery, Ophthalmology and Orthopaedic Surgery.

6. It is essential to note that ACT Health is not responsible for ensuring the completeness of the entire ACT health system. The system is dependent on medical services which

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