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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4438 ..

MS TUCKER: My question is to the Minister for Health and Community Care, Mrs Carnell. I refer the Minister to the fact that the ACT Government has lodged notice of an industrial dispute with the Industrial Relations Commission. The mental health workers demanded an operational plan for proposed changes at the psychiatric services unit at Canberra Hospital. Workers believe that management of Mental Health Services are planning to reduce the number of beds in the unit by about 15 in the next six months, despite the fact that an operational plan has not been released and adequate community support has not been put in place. As I am sure the Chief Minister is aware, it is essential that services are not reduced in acute settings unless proven and stable services are in place to replace them. Most experts would say that you need to run two systems in tandem before you drop off one of them. Can you inform the Assembly whether there are plans to reduce the number of beds at the psychiatric services unit; and when, and whether, you believe the level of service provision in the community has improved enough, in both quality and quantity, to enable such a reduction in services to take place?

MRS CARNELL: This is actually an easy one. No; we are not reducing bed numbers. No; I do not believe the standard of service generally has improved enough to reduce the number of beds; and I am not sure that you could reduce the number of critical care beds, in my timeframe anyway, in the psychiatric area. As I understand this particular industrial dispute - and again I come back to beds - we are not reducing the number of critical care beds in the psychiatric area. Last year we had occupancy rates that were in the high 90s. They have fallen a bit now, with the improvement of our 24-hour crisis service, with the work that we have done in the community setting and with better support services for people to stop them ending up in critical care units. But the occupancy rates are still in the vicinity of 90 per cent. They are still actually quite high; they are even a bit more than that at times. So, there is no capacity to close any beds at all.

As I understand it, what this industrial dispute is about is more to do with the implementation of the national mental health reform guidelines; that is, to have a mental health service that has, I suppose, more continuity of care. Ms Tucker would be very well aware of the national mental health reform approach and where we are very keen to achieve that reform. I understand that is what this is about. But, again, no bed numbers will be cut. We have actually increased funding by about 10 per cent in mental health over the last couple of years, and I think Ms Tucker could be fairly confident - in fact, could be very confident - that that increase in funding for mental health will continue, because the reality is that there is still unmet need out there.

MS TUCKER: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Could the Chief Minister and Minister for Health at this point elaborate, then, on the nature of the operational plan that is being asked for and that I believe is also a cause of dispute?

MRS CARNELL: I understand there is not an operational plan, and I think that is what the problem is here. As it has been explained to me, there has been ongoing consultation between the union and hospital management and the people in the mental health area about ways that we put in place the national mental health reform agenda and how we

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