Ministerial Statement

Mental Health Beds

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:44): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Mr Speaker, I have made plain my view that it is entirely unacceptable that mental health patients experience days parked in our hospital emergency departments. I do not believe that an emergency department is an appropriate setting for the ongoing care of people experiencing an acute episode, and there are genuine concerns that this could further stigmatise patients.

An ever-increasing demand for mental health services has placed pressure on our emergency departments and acute units, mental health patients, their families and, of course, our hard-working staff. I promised to toil until this matter could be resolved, and I am pleased to say that we have made good on our promise of increasing mental health bed capacity across the three major metropolitan hospitals. We have opened new mental health beds at the Lyell McEwin, Flinders Medical Centre and at Glenside Health Services, and more beds will open in Mount Gambier next year.

Today I am announcing more work to keep these gains in place by setting new targets for emergency department waiting times for mental health patients, placing pressure on the system to keep responding. Under these unashamedly ambitious targets, mental health patients should not routinely wait more than 24 hours for admission to an acute hospital bed from 1 January 2016. As part of a longer term plan, by July 2018 I have set new benchmarks where I expect 90 per cent of mental health patients to be admitted within eight hours and 75 per cent within four hours. Providing mental health consumers with a bed in an appropriate ward within these time frames means that they will be able to receive their care and start their recovery sooner.

Targets are important so that we can work with our senior mental health clinicians to change our mental health system and deliver better quality care for our patients. As result, other patients will be seen and treated more quickly because there will be greater access to emergency departments. However, targets are just numbers unless we remember that these targets are about people, our patients. Just today in InDaily we saw another real example of the limitations of our current system. Jeanette Walsh bravely spoke about her experience of her daughter's presentation of the QEH, and I agree with her sentiments in that story; 'You shouldn't have to be there for days on end…it doesn’t help anyone at all.' That is not good enough, and I expect things to improve.

In addition, I am establishing a new government structure for mental health services to enable consistent oversight of all mental health services in our local health networks. Under these important changes, the governance and administration of mental health will be made consistent with other clinical areas across our health services where clinicians lead and will be properly empowered and accountable

The new Portfolio Mental Health Executive will meet regularly to review performance indicators and to establish pathways to improve the quality of mental health services. This new executive brings a whole-of-health system approach and sharpens focus on the performance of our mental health services. I am also establishing a new advisory group involving key mental health clinicians from across the state to provide appropriate advice on mental health issues. The focus for this advisory group will be on reducing patient waiting times in hospital emergency departments. The group will work on ways to improve access to acute mental health beds and resolve some of the blockages within our system. A clinical audit will also be conducted to assess patient flow across our stepped model of care to ensure that patients are receiving the most appropriate care in the most appropriate place, first time every time.

I have always said that the issue of ensuring lower waiting times for mental health patients in emergency departments is a complex one. Providing safe and effective care in an appropriate environment remains a priority, and we are making inroads. Mental health is complex and no single solution addresses all the issues, but this place can be assured that my determination to find more solutions will not waver.