Page 4593 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 14 December 1993

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MINISTER FOR HEALTH

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY QUESTION

QUESTION N0.1059

Community Nursing Service - Pager Units

Mr Cornwell - asked the Minister of Health:

(1) Are community nurses to be restricted to two pager machines between 15 nurses as a cost saving measure and, if so, why is this deemed practicable?

(2) How much money per annum is it estimated will be saved by this measure?

(3) What is the cost of a pager as used by community nurses?

Mr Berry - the answer to Mr Cornwells question is:

(1) The Community Nursing Service is in the process of upgrading the paging

system from tone pagers to numeric pagers which will increase efficiency and

reduce telephone calls. The Service is not an emergency service and staff plan

workloads in advance. Following a review of usage rates and discussion with

Team Leaders, a decision was made to reduce the number of units from 131 to

45. All key personnel and after hours staff carry a unit.

(2) To maintain the old system the annual cost would be $11004 plus the cost of

additional telephone calls. In comparison the new system will cost $5 400 per

annum. By moving to the new system additional transmission saving will be

approximately $4 032 resulting in a saving of $9 636 per annum.

(3) Paging units are contracted from Hutchison Telecoms at a cost of $7 per

month for tone pagers and $10 for numeric pagers.

4593

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