Royal Adelaide Hospital

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (14:37): I have a further supplementary on the same topic. Will the same range of outpatient services that is currently being delivered at the old Royal Adelaide Hospital be delivered on site at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, as former health minister Hill said?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:38): That is certainly my expectation. We are consulting with clinicians at the moment. Obviously, the outpatient arrangements in the new hospital are very different from the arrangements that happen at the old hospital. We are also engaged in outpatient reform right across the state. At the moment, there are lots of significant areas where we can improve the way outpatients are done right across the state.

There are occasions when, because of information flow between the hospital and the referring GP, people are booked multiple times. In fact, I was speaking to the College of General Practitioners just yesterday and one of the issues they said they had was that they make multiple bookings for the one patient for the outpatient appointment to get that person on the list. That, of course, is not an efficient or effective way of running an outpatient system. We are looking at having a more centralised system to enable those outpatient referrals from GPs to happen far more smoothly than they currently do so that people are waiting less time for outpatients.

The reform process happening within the new RAH is not in isolation; it is part of an overall rethink about how we do outpatient referrals right across the state. We are confident, following reforms that have been tried and tested interstate, that there is a lot of room that we can improve our outpatient performance in South Australia, and we are keen to push ahead. That, combined with outpatient changes that will be happening as part of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, I think will lead to a far better outpatient system than we have had in the past.

Dr McFETRIDGE: Supplementary, Mr Speaker.

The SPEAKER: One can only have three supplementaries.

Dr McFETRIDGE: We can make it another question then, if you like, Mr Speaker.

The SPEAKER: Well, we will do that then, even though it doesn't conform to the list.