House of Assembly Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1) 55 1 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Question Time Central Adelaide Local Health Network Central Adelaide Local Health Network Mrs HURN House of Assembly Schubert Central Adelaide Local Health Network Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:18): A supplementary question: will the minister overturn this directive? The Hon. C.J. PICTON House of Assembly Kaurna Minister for Health and Wellbeing Central Adelaide Local Health Network The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:18): As I said, this is going through the tribunal process at the moment, but I think the key thing to acknowledge is that we want to make sure that discharges can happen earlier across the system. There are a number of different ways that that can occur. Clearly this is the process why the Central Adelaide Local Health Network have gone down this path. Other local health networks are going down different paths. Mrs Hurn interjecting: The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: Member for Schubert! The Hon. C.J. PICTON House of Assembly Kaurna Minister for Health and Wellbeing The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Clearly, if we can address the discharge delays that are happening across the system—and we have pulled out the data and it's very clear in terms of almost all of our major hospitals that there is an increasing delay that is happening in the discharges across the system. That is one of the key factors that is leading to the delays in getting people out of the emergency department and ultimately delays in the system. The Central Adelaide Local Health Network which, as members opposite will know, is established under its own board— Mrs Hurn interjecting: The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: Member for Schubert! The Hon. C.J. PICTON House of Assembly Kaurna Minister for Health and Wellbeing The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —will go through a process working through the Employment Tribunal in relation to that particular direction. But I think that everybody agrees that we need to work together to try to address the discharge delays that are happening and make that process earlier. It's better for the patients ultimately to get out of the beds earlier than they need to, but it also means— Mrs Hurn interjecting: The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert is warned. The minister has the call. The Hon. C.J. PICTON House of Assembly Kaurna Minister for Health and Wellbeing The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —that people can get the next transfer from the emergency department, where the emergency department clinicians have deemed that it's important for them to be in an inpatient bed and they need to be in that as soon as possible. There are blockages where people are unfortunately stuck sometimes for days waiting in the emergency department for a bed. It's not only bad for those patients but bad for the system overall.