Health Review

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:11): Can the minister outline to the house what the net effect of full-time equivalent employee numbers will be across SA Health after the reforms have been introduced?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:11): Again, like my answer to the question on bed numbers, it would very much depend upon how successful we are in implementing these reforms. It will depend upon whether we can get our acute bed numbers down.

We need to invest more in keeping people out of hospital and we need to invest more in getting people out of hospital once they are there. If we can release that capacity, then we are not going to need as many acute beds and staff around these acute beds as we currently have, but in order to achieve that we do need to invest in other parts of our health workforce.

As I was saying, particularly with regard to allied health, we need to invest in our allied health workforce because they are the engine room of our health system. They are the people who get people out of their hospital beds and walking around after a major surgery or a stroke or an injury and who get them out of the hospital bed and back home. That is a part of the workforce I am very happy to see grow because it is going to make for a better, more effective, more efficient health system than we currently have.

The SPEAKER: Supplementary.