Health Budget

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:52): Supplementary: given that the minister has stated that he is actually pursuing a reduction in bed numbers, will the government—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: He doesn't need help from you, Tom. Will the government be reducing the number of nurses, either altering the nurse to bed ratio or renegotiating that industrial agreement with the nurses' union?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:52): I've made no secret of the fact that we have the highest number of hospital beds for our population size anywhere in Australia, perhaps anywhere else in the world, and I would like to see us reduce the number of acute beds. We do need to increase the number of subacute beds.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Well, our ratio is 2.6 and the Australian average is about, I think from memory, 2.1. So we have significantly more hospital beds for our population size—acute hospital beds—than other states and, in fact, any other Australian state or, indeed, territory. I make no secret of the fact that I would like to see that brought down to closer to what the national average is.

Having said that, we have fewer subacute beds, we need more rehabilitation beds, we need beds that actually get people better and get them out of hospital, and we do need to change the bed mix. Of course, as we change those, we need to change the roles some nurses do. We won't need as many—I would anticipate, if we are able to achieve such a reduction—nurses working on wards, but what we do need and where I do want to use nursing staff much more is out in the community. We need more community nurses doing the work that keeps people out of hospital. We need more nurse practitioners taking on an expanded scope of practice and doing things like, and being involved in discharging of patients from hospital and all that other expanded scope of practice that we can have.

We also need more allied health staff. We need to recruit more positions such as physiotherapists, nutritionists, speech pathologists, because they are the health professionals who get people out of hospital and keep them out of hospital. So there is no secret. I have been quite clear about this throughout the whole Transforming Health process. We do need to change—

Mr Knoll interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert is warned a first time.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: We do need to change the mix in our workforce and I certainly want more nurses with higher qualifications and with an expanded scope of practice. I want more allied health as well and I would hope that in time we would be able to reduce our acute bed numbers down to closer to what the national average is than what it is at the present.

The SPEAKER: Supplementary, the leader.