Emergency Departments

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:12): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: During winter this year, there have been more presentations to our emergency departments than ever before: a total of 96,323. This is almost a thousand more than during the winter of 2014, which was also a record year. Two years of incredibly high numbers of flu cases have contributed to this figure. Flu notifications during winter last year were 4,376, but this year that almost doubled to 8,136.

Despite this increased demand, our hospitals have coped well. In fact, patients have spent on average 26 minutes less in our EDs than patients who attended EDs in winter last year. This is a testament—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: I know the opposition don't like good news. This is—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: They are always looking for an opportunity to bag hospitals.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Always looking for an opportunity to criticise doctors and nurses; always looking for an opportunity to bag our hospitals, but I will continue, Mr Speaker. This is a testament to the dedication of our doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and ambulance staff, and I want to thank them for their commitment to patient care during very demanding periods. It is due to their hard work, expertise and planning that our hospitals were as prepared as possible and coped so well in meeting this extra demand.

SA Health's preparation to manage the increased winter activity included targeted pilot programs that looked at ways to streamline patients' assessment and treatment and how to minimise delays in discharging patients who were ready to go home from other parts of the hospital. These changes resulted in more capacity throughout our emergency departments and our hospitals.

Further, the 'Emergency departments are for emergencies' campaign was also rolled out across the state, starting in June and running through until early September. During this time, the number of patients attending hospitals with less acute conditions (referred to as category 4 and 5 presentations) was around 6 per cent lower than during the previous winter.

All of these improvements demonstrate the central message of our reform program, Transforming Health: that we can make changes that result in an improved efficiency in our systems while improving the quality of patient care. No-one wants to spend any more time in an emergency department than absolutely necessary, and this reduction of almost half an hour for patients is one small demonstration of the positive changes that our clinicians have told us can be achieved.