Patient Care

Ms COOK (Fisher) (14:37): My question is to the Minister for Health. Can the minister inform the house about our government's plans to ensure that patients have shorter stays in hospital as well as better quality care?

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:37): Don't you just love the fake laughter? It's not just a fake face, it's fake laughter. Can I thank the member for Fisher for the question. We are modernising our health system so that it meets contemporary clinical standards and practice and provides the best quality health care for South Australians. We want our health system to provide consistent quality care that is equal to or better than comparable health systems across both Australia and internationally.

We know that South Australia has the highest average length of stay in our hospitals and more beds per capita than any other Australian state. I have made no secret that we want to reduce length of stay of our patients close to the national average so that our patients can get the care they need and get home to loved ones as quickly as possible. Clinical evidence tells us that being in hospital for longer than needed can be detrimental. Shorter stays in hospital also free up beds, allowing us to deliver more services to more people.

Under Transforming Health, improvements like faster access to diagnostics, removal of blockages to discharging patients and earlier access to allied health are all ensuring our patients only stay in hospital while they need clinical treatment and care and are not sitting in hospital beds waiting unnecessarily. For example, in the south the average waiting time for our patients to be seen by an aged-care assessment team was around five days at Noarlunga and more than eight days at the Flinders Medical Centre and the Repat.

Now, our patients are returning home or to a residential facility much sooner than previously, with the latest data showing almost 100 per cent of these assessments are completed in less than two working days, due to improvements that our clinicians have made. Medical advances in innovations, like keyhole surgery, new medications and state-of-the-art technology, have significantly improved recovery times, meaning that the time our patients spend in hospital has reduced dramatically.

Once we have fully implemented our dedicated elective surgery centres more procedures, that were previously done and provided as overnight or multiday surgery, will be undertaken as day cases, bringing us in line with contemporary clinical practice and resulting in higher surgery output. I have previously noted that Noarlunga Hospital has already undertaken almost 40 per cent more day and 23-hour surgery when compared with last year, and we want this to increase further.

We need fewer acute multiday beds because people are staying in hospital for shorter periods of time or receiving their care in different settings. Through Transforming Health, there will be improved access to rehabilitation services so our patients can recover from an acute episode and get home sooner. There will be more health care in the home and other community care services, meaning that our patients will be able to be discharged from hospital safely and sooner than ever before and will have access to a team of health professionals.

Since we started implementing Transforming Health, we have already seen positive results. South Australian patients are spending, on average, seven hours less in metropolitan hospitals despite more presentations than ever before. The improvements we have seen mean that our patients are staying an average of two days less in hospital for hip fracture surgery compared with last year. This shows that our patients are getting to theatre more quickly, recovering faster and getting home sooner. This is only a small sample of the improvements we're making to patient care through Transforming Health which will continue to see patients move faster through our hospital system, meaning shorter hospital stays and better quality care for all South Australians.