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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 9 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 3312 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

The bulletins were tabled at the next available sitting date by the previous government. An important distinction to make about the government's new monthly report is that audit and validation exercises are now undertaken. The government puts the raw data that used to be tabled by the previous government through data checks to make sure that the information we publish is accurate and reliable.

Unlike those opposite, who delivered unchecked or inaccurate data, sometimes duplicating or double counting people, we are putting in place data that is accurate and audited. Even with this added quality-control exercise, we are still able for most months to get our waiting list data published in a timely fashion.

In response to Mr Smyth's second concern, I can advise him that information about waiting times for all specialities and some procedures will be reported quarterly on the ACT Health waiting list webpage. This information will include activity data and the waiting time for people at the 50th and 90th percentiles. These are the waiting times in which 50 per cent and 90 per cent of all people waiting receive their surgery.

These are the performance indicators that are used nationally. They are the national reporting indicators; they give the best indication of possible waiting times in specialities and for individual procedures. We are following the nationally accepted and consistent reporting patterns for the 50th and 90th percentiles.

The figures will be reported quarterly rather than monthly, due to the very small size of the ACT hospital system. In a small system, with only two public hospitals conducting public elective surgery, it is quite likely that in some of these smaller, unique specialities it will be possible with a monthly report to identify not only potential patients but also surgeons. Is that appropriate? In the government's view it is not. There are significant privacy issues when reporting small figures. Monthly numbers would be too small and too volatile for accurate analysis and comparison.

In response to Mr Smyth's third concern, I recently reviewed the elective surgery information on the ACT Health website and found that a lot more information should be published electronically. I have directed ACT Health to amend the website to include all the information in the monthly waiting list report, as well as the information I mentioned previously relating to specialities and specific procedures. The amended website will be active from early September 2003 and will be updated each month as soon as accurate and validated data is available.

Mr Smyth wants the government's report to show at least as much information as the reports produced by the previous Liberal government. I can say now that our reports show more. Perhaps he would like us to go back to their way of reporting, but to do this we would have to take some information out of our report. We would have to take out the information showing the number of people who were admitted to surgery over time-because they never reported it.

We would have to make members and the people of the ACT wade through 48 monthly reports to get a handle on trends in the number of people on the waiting list and how many people were added to the list over the two years. We would effectively remove the

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