Page 1616 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 12 May 2015
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individual health planning unit briefs for each of the hospital’s functional areas. These have also been released for public consultation. That commenced in June 2014 and it closed later that year.
We have also undertaken very extensive consultation with user groups to develop briefs for the additional areas or shared spaces of the facility and those shared with the University of Canberra. A preliminary sketch plan has also been completed. So we are well and truly underway with this very important investment in new healthcare capability for our city and for our community.
It is this Labor government that has made the investment that needs to be made to shift subacute care out of our acute care hospitals, to put it into a purpose-built, dedicated facility at the University of Canberra. In doing so, we are aligning those subacute care models with the outstanding training in nursing and allied health professionals that is delivered by the University of Canberra and leveraging their significant capability in that area to drive improvements in subacute care. So whether it is the aged person who needs rehabilitation following a debilitating illness, whether it is someone who needs hydrotherapy following a motor vehicle accident, whether it is somebody with mental illness who needs dedicated care in a subacute environment to help them manage that illness and return to the community, this is the facility that is going to meet those needs. And it is this Labor government that is investing in that infrastructure for our growing community.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Ms Fitzharris.
MS FITZHARRIS: Minister, how has consultation been progressing?
MR CORBELL: I thank Ms Fitzharris for her supplementary. We have been undertaking community consultation on the reference design for the new University of Canberra public hospital. That was officially kicked off on 16 March this year. The vice-chancellor, Professor Parker, and I were on site to mark the commencement of that consultation process. It closed on 17 April and we have had a very broad range of community suggestions, ideas and comments. In particular, 12 submissions on the design were received. These are being collated into a consultation report and I expect to see the outcomes and detail of that consultation report shortly.
That report will ultimately be provided to the potential contractor consortia for the University of Canberra public hospital project and they will be required to respond to the issues contained in the report as part of the tender process. It will also, of course, be made publicly available on the ACT Health website.
The reference design on which public consultation was sought reflects the preliminary sketch plan requirements. The PSP design commenced, as I mentioned before, in June 2014. Following completion, the PSP was subsequently endorsed by the health infrastructure program strategic committee in February this year.
So we are getting on with the delivery of this very important election commitment to provide a dedicated subacute facility at UC, to do so in collaboration with UC and to make sure we have got the broad range of rehabilitation and subacute care models that we need for our growing and ageing population.
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