Coronial Investigations

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:08): Yes, thank you. My question is to the Minister for Health. Given the minister has had the benefit of hearing that last answer, would the minister now explain to the house what information is being sought by the Coroner to be able to undertake his work as he claims is needed to do so, and what action has the minister taken to amend the Health Care Act to accommodate that, if anything?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (15:08): The information the Coroner has asked for and in fact took the Department for Health to the Supreme Court to try to access is root cause analysis. So, when there is an adverse event in one of our hospitals, our priority is to firstly determine the reason behind the adverse event and what lessons need to be learnt to make sure that they are not repeated.

The Health Care Act provides for these root cause analyses to be done in a privileged environment, so they cannot be provided to the Coroner, they cannot be used in any proceedings against any clinician and there are very, very good reasons for that. When there is an adverse event, it is very, very important that we quickly determine what the cause of that event is because we don't want it repeated.

That's the reason why we have those root cause analyses and that's why they are given special privileges by the parliament in the Health Care Act. This is a provision that has existed under both Labor and Liberal governments. It has always had very strong bipartisan support, and it is widely accepted as being part of good quality and safety protocols that you have in any health system. Similar provisions would operate interstate.

So, no, we won't be making amendments to the Health Care Act. I certainly do not propose to do that. If the Coroner has any concerns, anything that we would do we would not do on a unilateral basis. That would be something that I would want to do in line with updates to health and safety on a national basis, if we were to consider any changes, but certainly this is not something we would be tackling or dealing with on our own.

If you were to have a situation where these root cause analyses and what doctors may admit to in that environment, you will have a situation where they simply lawyer up and you get no information out of them and you have the normal rules of evidence and so on and rules about incriminating themselves. That would cause significant delay in getting to the heart of what the cause was of an adverse event. These provisions are widely recognised not just in South Australia but nationally as an important part of good quality health care.

Having said that, the Coroner is able to access practically every other piece of information with regard to a patient's care. He is able to access the patient's notes, he is able to call the clinicians who treated the patient before him—he has access to all of that information. This is simply one privileged process that doesn't go to the Coroner for very, very good reasons and well-established reasons that have operated right around the country and under both when either party has been sitting on the Treasury benches.

The SPEAKER: I am pleased to be able to tell the house that Mrs Donoghue drank the bottle of ginger beer and Mr Stevenson was the ginger beer manufacturer and that it is also known as the 'Paisley snail' case.