JAMES NASH HOUSE REDEVELOPMENT

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (14:47): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Today I am pleased to announce an increase in forensic mental health capacity in South Australia. Currently there are 30 beds at the forensic facility at Oakden—James Nash House as it is known—and 10 beds at Glenside. The 10 beds at Glenside are being relocated to the James Nash complex into a new contemporary design complex adjacent to the existing facilities. Having all forensic consumers located in the same area will maximise security and clinical efficiencies.

The government has also been successful in securing funding from the commonwealth to construct a 10-bed Step Down Rehabilitation Unit which will be designed to allow forensic patients to transition to the community with greater ease. Construction will be completed in June 2013, and this addition to the existing 40 beds will increase overall capacity in the forensic system to 50 beds. It will enhance patient flow, as consumers who do not have acute needs will be able to move to this service thereby opening up space for other acute consumers.

Whilst the increasing capacity to 50 will make a positive difference to the waiting list, the government acknowledged that for South Australia a capacity of 60 beds has been recommended by a number of peak bodies and consumer advocates including the Mental Health Coalition of South Australia, the Office of the Public Advocate and the Principal Community Visitor. We therefore sought to examine options to further increase capacity by another 10 beds. I mentioned it to the member for Waite during estimates when we examined this issue, and I said that I would come back to explain how I was going to do that; well, today I will.

Today I am pleased to announce that the state funded redevelopment project has been revised in scope to expand the original concept of a 10-bed complex, with a project cost of $19 million, to a 20-bed one. The current construction market is favourable to purchasers, and the efficiencies of design mean that doubling the capacity can be done for an estimated additional $3 million ($19 million for 10 beds and $22 million, essentially, for 20 beds), revising the total project cost to $22 million.

The funding for this will be reallocated from other SA Health projects which have come in under budget. The expanded project will now be taken to the Public Works Committee. When the new 20-bed facility is completed by mid-2014, the increase in capacity will align this state with the national average for forensic mental health beds. Importantly, it will relieve pressure on general acute mental health services. When a forensic patient is in the acute mental health system, they take the place of non-forensic patients and there is a flow-on effect for hospital emergency departments, and there have been reports of that from time to time, as members would know.

Emergency departments are not the most appropriate setting for mental health patients anyway, who consequently also sometimes require security guards, adding considerable additional cost to their care. In addition to significantly increasing the capacity of forensic mental health services in South Australia, a further benefit of this expanded project is the estimated peak construction workforce of about 50 workers to build the facility. I thank the officers of my department who came up with this ingenious way of fixing this particular problem.