Enterprise Patient Administration System

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:43): Can the minister assure the house that the rollout of the EPAS system to the Royal Adelaide Hospital will not deny patients access to information on the Royal Adelaide Hospital Emergency Department?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:43): Sorry, can I assure—sometimes the Leader of the Opposition's questions make very little sense at all.

Mr Marshall: That the rollout of the EPAS system to the Royal Adelaide Hospital will not deny patients access to information—

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Patients access?

Mr Marshall: Yes, well it is on the dashboard.

The SPEAKER: Could the minister be seated and the leader read the question again, perhaps in a more lucid way?

Mr MARSHALL: Absolutely. I think it is pretty obvious we are talking about EPAS, the dashboard failing at the Noarlunga Hospital, the minister not being aware of the fact that potentially a patient died while waiting six hours at the Noarlunga Hospital and then being transferred to another hospital.

The SPEAKER: Could you make it an interrogation rather than a statement?

Mr MARSHALL: Well, I think I have clarified the situation.

The SPEAKER: No, you have made an impromptu speech. Could you now phrase it as a question?

Mr MARSHALL: Yes, certainly. Can the minister assure the house that the rollout of the EPAS system to the Royal Adelaide Hospital will not deny patients access to the information on the Royal Adelaide Hospital Emergency Department?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: It's the problem, when the Leader of the Opposition gets other people to write his questions for him, he just doesn't understand, and it is quite clear that there is no-one on the opposition side of the house who understands anything about health. That's why they can't find someone down here who can be the health spokesman. What an embarrassment they are.

The SPEAKER: The minister—

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: What an embarrassment you are. You don't even have—

The SPEAKER: I call the Minister for Health to order! Has the minister quite finished?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Sir, I think what the Leader of the Opposition, if he properly understood the question and the issue, is trying to ask is: can I reassure the house that when EPAS is rolled out to the Royal Adelaide Hospital we won't have similar issues as we've seen at Noarlunga. I think that's what the Leader of the Opposition, or the person who wrote the question for him, was trying to get at. Maybe if the Leader of the Opposition spent a little bit of time before question time getting briefed on these issues he might make a little sense.

Ms Chapman: He is defying your ruling on that on that, sir.

The SPEAKER: I don't think I got around to making a ruling, but I think the minister's answer is finished.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Sir, we will do everything to ensure that, in rolling out EPAS to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, we don't encounter similar problems. The fact is that in any IT rollout in any sector—public or private sector, health, banking, finance—of course there are always teething issues. This has been a teething issue with the Noarlunga Hospital in terms of our ability to get the data up onto the dashboard, and, no, I don't expect that we would see similar problems with the rollout of the Royal Adelaide because we have learnt a lot of lessons from the rollout to Noarlunga.