Page 2647 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 15 August 2017
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
cost of outputs, capital injection and payments on behalf of the territory. If this is the wish of the Assembly, schedule 1 will be considered by each part, consisting of net cost of outputs, capital injection and payments on behalf of the territory, then the clauses and the title.
Schedule 1—Appropriations—Proposed expenditure.
ACT Executive—Part 1.1.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
ACT Gambling and Racing Commission—Part 1.2.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
ACT Local Hospital Network—Part 1.3.
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (10.46): As with numerous other portfolios, I believe that the substantive issues in the local hospital network as well as gambling and racing and the ACT executive will be covered in the policy areas of the relevant portfolios. Of course, gambling and racing and the local hospital network have another agency that covers off on the substantive policy; therefore, the opposition will be treating those other portfolios as being the place in which we will address issues such as the local hospital network and gambling and racing.
MR WALL (Brindabella) (10.46): Madam Acting Speaker, as you are tied up in the chair, I will speak on your behalf as the shadow minister for health. Why is it that when the government set strategic outcomes and accountability indicators in the budget context it looks like they have just stuck their fingers in the air to see which way the wind is blowing? There seems to be little, if any, science in those numbers. When the outcome is less than the target, no real analysis of the underlying reasons is done. The status quo is applied, thus the target potentially becomes unachievable. The psychological impact on the frontline people is that they ignore it because it is unachievable. When the outcome is more than the target, again, no analysis is undertaken. Certainly no improvement is built in to the next year target and the status quo again is applied. Thus there is no acknowledgement of improvement in the last year and no incentive to improve further in the next.
I will give the Assembly some examples out of the budget documents for the ACT local hospitals network. Leaving aside the question of data integrity—we all know there is none—the targets for 2017-18 for the proportion of emergency department presentations being targeted within clinically appropriate time frames across the five triage levels are exactly the same as for 2016-17, and yet the outcomes for 2016-17 show variations. Triage stage 3—that is, patients seen within 30 minutes—was fully one-third less than the target. No analysis is made of the reasons for the outcome; the status quo was just applied.
Then, at the bottom, there is the nebulous statement about improvements in time line performance and commitments to achieving targets. If we look at the budget for
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video