KordaMentha Report

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (14:44): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier give an example of one of the patient procedures and operations in our hospitals that he believes is unnecessary?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:45): In fact, we were talking about this only recently down at the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network. There are plenty of people who are in acute beds consuming activities, by the metric outlined by those opposite, who shouldn't be in the Flinders Medical Centre. That's why we made the decision to create an additional 40-bed capacity at the Repat site. We do that so that we can free up the capacity, so that we can remove the activities that are suboptimal at the major teaching hospital. We get better—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, leader and deputy leader!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —patient outcomes if we invest in the additional capacity where it's required. I don't know, it seems to me logical that you benchmark yourself against the rest of the LHNs in the country. The Central Adelaide Local Health Network is the poorest performing local health network in South Australia and at the bottom of the table nationally. What are those opposite arguing? Let's keep it at the bottom of the table? What are they honestly offering to this debate? By contrast, what we are doing is consulting with the people ignored by the previous government. We ask stakeholders, clinicians, employees, consumer groups, employee groups—

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition is warned for a second and final time.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —and employee representatives. We asked them, 'What things can we do to deliver a much better outcome for the people of South Australia?' They gave us that advice. It's been incorporated into the implementation plan. We went down and spoke to people working in the Central Adelaide Local Health Network yesterday. They applaud the government for taking action. Many people were making comments like, 'We were completely ignored by the previous government. We now feel that we have a government that is listening to us,' and that's what we are doing. We are listening—

The SPEAKER: The Premier's time has expired.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —to people in the system because we want to have better outcomes for our state.