Emergency Departments

In reply to Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (4 April 2019).

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining): The Minister for Health and Wellbeing has been advised:

Recent data indicates that there were more presentations at South Australian metropolitan hospitals in the first three months of this year than in the entire winter period of 2018. What used to be seasonal demand is now all year round. The government has developed a Hospital Demand Management Plan to respond to this change.

The plan includes a range of strategies:

As of 5 September, alternative accommodation and support services have been secured to facilitate the discharge for 84 long stay patients waiting for National Disability Insurance Scheme who had had a combined length of stay of 10,434 days in hospital beyond the point when they were medically ready for discharge—around 5½ months per patient.

In all three of the metropolitan LHNs program have commenced to link patients with care in the community, with 300 patients benefiting as at 5 September.

In CALHN an out-of-hospital mental health program has commenced, and the Marshall Liberal government opened the 10 bed psychiatric intensive care unit at the RAH.

Ten forensic mental health beds have opened at Glenside.

The government has opened four new priority care centres to provide patients presenting with low acuity conditions an alternative to visiting an emergency department.

The government as at 5 September has also opened or kept open 50 new beds at the Repat since winter 2018.

The full plan can be found at: www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/HospitalDemandPlan.