Transforming Health

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:01): My question is to the Minister for Health. What multiple initiatives have been introduced under Transforming Health to unlock capacity and improve patient access and flow across the system of care, particularly in emergency departments and especially at Modbury Hospital?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (15:01): Well, many—firstly, making sure that we have emergency departments that have the services they need. I will give the member for Florey a very good example that she will be familiar with, and that is moving to a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week orthopaedic roster where we had elderly patients who were needing hip operations having to wait on average 150 hours in extreme discomfort in the emergency department before they could have the operation. Since we've moved to the 24-hour, seven-day-a-week roster, that time spent in the Lyell McEwin ED is down I think to an average of 15 hours, so a 90 per cent reduction in the amount of time those patients are waiting in the emergency department to have their operation.

Another good example is when I first came into the portfolio. Members will be aware we did have significant problems with mental health patients waiting sometimes many days to be admitted to a mental health bed and this caused significant problems: it was poor for the mental health patient because obviously an emergency department is no place for a person who is undergoing some form of psychosis, and it was terrible for the staff of the emergency departments because obviously a mental health patient who is disturbed consumes an enormous amount of the time of the clinical staff in the emergency department.

It was very important that one of the first things I made a priority, and committed to a target of, was having no mental health patient having to wait longer than 24 hours for admission to a bed and being stuck in the ED. I have to say that we have largely achieved that. It does still happen on occasion, but it has basically been eliminated. It is very rare that we have a mental health patient waiting in an ED.

There are any number—and I could keep going—of other initiatives being undertaken. I know that Flinders Medical Centre have done a lot of work to pull patients out of the emergency department, having senior clinical staff available to pull patients out of the emergency department if they need to be admitted into a ward. Another example for the Lyell McEwin are the changes we made for medical imaging at the Lyell McEwin Hospital, where we had significant problems with access to medical imaging; that was largely as a result of the difficulty we had recruiting to the Lyell McEwin emergency department. There was a long list of reports waiting, so patients were waiting in the emergency department because the clinicians in the ED did not have access to the diagnostics that they required.

With regard to the Modbury emergency department, I know that nurse practitioners have been particularly successful. I have my own personal story. Last year, I took my son to Modbury Hospital because he had injured his wrist playing soccer. He is the goalie and took a kick to the wrist. I took him to the Modbury Hospital ED. We were seen—

The SPEAKER: Did he save it?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: He did, yes. He put his body on the line and he did save the goal. I think the team actually won the game as well. Anyway, we went to the Modbury Hospital ED. We were seen by a nurse practitioner very quickly. The nurse practitioner ordered that my son have an X-ray, and he was taken to have the plaster applied. We were in and out of the emergency department in a very, very quick point of time. I could go on—

The SPEAKER: The minister's time has expired.