Page 619 - Week 02 - Thursday, 20 February 2020
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MRS DUNNE: Why did 80 per cent of patients requiring urgent treatment fail to be seen on time?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I thank Mrs Dunne for her supplementary question. I have spoken on radio about the fact that the pattern that we see, that category 3 patients are the least likely to be seen on time, according to the 30-minute benchmark, is a common pattern across hospitals. That is because a lot of emergency departments group together category 3, 4 and 5 patients to be seen in order of arrival, other than if they are going through a fast-track stream or something else. The pattern itself is seen across a lot of our hospitals, certainly in both of our hospitals and in a lot of peer hospitals.
In terms of the numbers, I have said that they are not where we want them to be. We do want to improve those times, but we need to do that in a way that is not about numbers on a piece of paper but is actually about quality patient care. What we see in our quarterly performance report is that 92 per cent of patients who have received hospital care from Canberra Health Services have provided positive feedback on that care and 84 per cent have rated their care as good or very good. When these matters are reported on social media, we see people coming back with very positive comments about their experiences in the emergency department.
We receive feedback such as this: “I highly recommend the ED at Canberra Hospital. The staff and service are number one. A couple of weeks ago my 80-year-old father presented at emergency, followed by admission to hospital for an emergency hip replacement. I would like to thank the entire TCH staff who looked after my father. You all worked extremely hard and presented yourselves in a highly professional manner. Both myself and my husband have always been treated well in medical emergencies that were actual medical emergencies. This is both at Calvary and Canberra Hospital. Canberra Hospital staff saved my life and I am forever grateful for them. We have also used walk-in centres for minor medical needs, which I can highly recommend.”
The list of positive feedback about our emergency departments goes on. The only people who are entirely focused on the negative are those opposite.
Mrs Jones: And those who have had a bad experience.
MADAM SPEAKER: Please go to a question, not a comment, Mrs Jones.
MRS JONES: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Despite all this effort you describe, why do the performances of our emergency departments in treating people who present to ED continue to get worse in their timings?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I thank Mrs Jones for the supplementary. I have spoken also about some of the pressures that we have seen on our emergency department. Canberra Hospital is one of the busiest emergency departments in the country, with about 90,000 presentations a year, but the pattern of those presentations has changed over time. We have seen more Canberrans choosing alternatives when they have less
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