Page 1590 - Week 05 - Thursday, 15 May 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Mr Smyth: Another roundtable.
MS GALLAGHER: Yes, another one, Mr Smyth, because part of my job is to talk to people about what is happening. What we have seen since the 2008-09 year, just for information, because it is interesting information, is that whilst there has been a nine per cent increase in our population over that time to this financial year, there has been a 25 per cent increase in presentations to the emergency department. There has also been a massive change in the numbers of people coming from the north of Canberra to attend the Canberra Hospital’s emergency department in that time. So there are very interesting changes happening and pressure that is being placed on the emergency department over a very short period of time.
Essentially, the difference is not to do with lack of resources and it is not to do with the care that is provided in the emergency department. The difference we have seen over the last 12 to 13 years is a very significant increase in presentations to the emergency department, much greater than standard population growth. That has put pressure on triage timeliness.
I would say, though, that we are moving to the four-hour rule, or we were until national health reform was ripped up on Tuesday night. The four-hour rule measures the treatment part of the experience at the emergency department, whereas the triage time represents the time to actually get to care. We are doing better in that now and we are doing better in our four-hour target. We always lead the country in terms of the quality of care provided in our emergency department. I am not going to pretend there are not pressures there; there are. But I do not think it is as easy a situation as the opposition would try and project to the community.
There has been a lot of work put into this area of government. We have put a lot of resources in. We have supported the staff to make changes in the way they have patients travel through the emergency department. We are doing an incredible amount of work in the rest of the hospital to make sure that supports the work in the emergency department. At the end of the day, presentations continue to rise, and there has been no change to that. In the first six months of this reporting period there has been a five per cent increase in presentations, on top of last year’s increase, and at the same time they have improved performance overall by nine per cent against the four-hour rule. We have gone from 50 per cent to 59 per cent. They are doing an incredibly good job.
MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Mrs Jones.
MRS JONES: On a detail of the report, why are urgent category 3 patients with blood loss and dehydration being seen at 47 per cent on time compared to a target of 75 per cent?
MS GALLAGHER: If I look at the 2013-14 report year, the performance for category 3 year to date is 49 per cent, up from 43 per cent in the previous year. The target is for 75 per cent. So we are seeing improvement. Category 3 is the area where it is the hardest. It is one of the largest presentation groups, where people need to be
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video