Patient Assistance Transport Scheme

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (15:04): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Is the presence of two different sorts of handwriting grounds for denying a PATS claim form? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr ELLIS: I recently had a constituent present with a rejected PATS claim form on the grounds that it had two sorts of handwriting. At her specialist appointment, the admin staff had filled out the majority of the form, leaving just the details for the specialist themselves to fill in, but when it was submitted it was therefore rejected, forcing her back to the specialist to take up their valuable time to fill in the entire form.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:04): Thank you to the member for Narungga for his question and his continued advocacy on behalf of his residents in relation to health care in his area. Thank you to the member for raising this with me and my office. We have received a letter from the member for Narungga in relation to this matter, and I have made sure that we have raised it with the PATS team for their investigation. On the face of it, I can't see why that would have been the case. It certainly isn't my understanding that that would be in the policy, so I am looking forward to seeing an explanation from the PATS team and the Rural Support Service in relation to that matter but also if there can be steps taken to rectify that matter in terms of any payment being released to your constituent.

I would say as well that the team and the Rural Support Service led by Executive Director Debbie Martin are undertaking work in terms of trying to make the system more electronic to enter, if not the 21^st century, at least the 20^th century, with our PATS record system and make sure that we can have electronic submissions for a number of these documents. Once that system is in place, that may well go to help prevent those sorts of instances happening in the future as well.