Hospital Avoidance Hubs

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:06): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Have there been any transfer of care delays at the Sefton Park and Daw Park hospital avoidance hubs and, if so, are these measured in the same way as other metropolitan hospitals?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:06): Not to my knowledge but I am happy to seek further information. The key requirement of those centres is that for the ambulance to go to those centres they need to check in in terms of the availability of those centres before they go there.

So, understanding that, the ambulance will ring, say, Sefton Park or the SALHN care at the Repat service and check whether there is availability there. If there is, then they are able to take the ambulance and take them straight through. Certainly, when I visited particularly Sefton Park they have said that they have always been able to take those ambulances straight through to those services.

Importantly, these are important hospital avoidance services that we have in place, and these are more advanced than we see in terms of some of the Priority Care Centres that we have in operation, and they can take a higher acuity of patient, which is really important. That's why in the latest state budget we have announced that we are going to be establishing two more of these centres as well—one in the western suburbs and one in the northern suburbs.

That will give us a network of four of these hospital avoidance centres across Adelaide to give our paramedics another option in terms of taking people apart from going to hospital. Importantly as well, it will not just be referrals from the Ambulance Service itself; it might be referrals from the Virtual Care Service or referrals from GPs themselves.

Certainly the feedback that we have had from patients themselves is that these have been very positive and that they have had good outcomes through those two services that are operating at the moment. We expect that we will continue to see good outcomes for people in terms of those other two services that will open as well.

In addition to that, of course the federal government is investing in urgent care centres as well. There will be four of those established across Adelaide—one in the northern suburbs, one centrally or in the western suburbs, and then two in the inner and outer southern suburbs as well. We look forward to the further details and announcements from the federal government in relation to those. There will also be, importantly for the member for Mount Gambier and also for the member for MacKillop, another one of those established in Mount Gambier as well.

They will provide an additional element, but these will be very much for people to walk into those centres, whereas what we see in these hospital avoidance centres is that you can't necessarily walk into them in the same way you can those urgent care centres or a hospital emergency department. For these hospital avoidance centres, you need to be referred into them. That makes sure that we have the capacity there to see those people who otherwise would be going to an emergency department and where we can otherwise provide that care.

Predominantly, the workforce in these centres is a mixture of SA Health nurses and also allied health support and medical support. There are a number of GPs we employ through SA Health who provide services in those centres as well. What we see, particularly in terms of those two centres that we have operational at the moment, is the ability to undertake imaging, which means that there is a higher level of acuity that can come through those centres.

They have been established slightly differently, but I think what we will see over time is a common operating model develop, particularly once we get to all four of those centres operating. The two new centres are currently going through a tender process, in terms of identifying the specific locations for them, and we look forward to making announcements about them soon.