Page 1755 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 7 June 2016
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navigator position, we have also implemented team-based care to improve timeliness in the ED through triage, improving patient flow and teaching and training. We have established a director of operations as a single point of accountability in leading these reforms across the hospital. We have developed an early discharge program, which is focused on removing delays from the discharge process: if people are ready to be discharged from the hospital, that should occur in a timely way. Once someone is discharged, of course, that bed is available for another patient, potentially and most significantly, a patient that has probably been admitted through the emergency department.
We are restructuring the Canberra Hospital patient flow unit to strengthen centralised hospital bed allocation and to look at escalations of delays in patient flow; so where there are delays in patients moving from one part of the hospital to another, for example, from the ED into a ward, that needs to be addressed. The restructuring of the Canberra Hospital patient flow unit is giving that part of the hospital the authority to deal with those blockages.
Finally, we are focusing on developing and implementing a medical engagement strategy to strengthen the role of medical staff in supporting patient flows and improving the active and positive contribution of those medical staff to maintain and enhance the performance of the organisation as a whole.
There are many things we can do in the hospital environment. We can improve capacity, we can improve infrastructure and we can employ more staff. But we also need to focus on the culture of the organisation and how it works collaboratively to deliver timely care, and that is a very important focus for me as Minister for Health.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Hanson.
MR HANSON: Minister, do you have any further explanation for why you have been presenting false data about ED performance, waiting times, in your recent quarterly reports?
MR CORBELL: I thank Mr Hanson for the question. As Mr Hanson well knows, there were two errors in that report which the government has identified and addressed.
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, Mr Hanson.
MR CORBELL: It may very well be the case that Mr Hanson is going to continue his scare campaign in this area, but what I would say in rebuttal to him is that if his suggestion is that by reporting worse performance than was actually the case it is somehow a deliberate measure on the part of the government, if it is the case that—
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, Mr Hanson.
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