Royal Flying Doctor Service

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (14:38): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the Minister update the house on the government's investment in the Royal Flying Doctor Service?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:38): I thank the member for Giles for asking this important question. The Royal Flying Doctor Service is one of the state's great institutions. I think we are all proud of the work that they provide, across our very vast landmass of South Australia, in making sure that no matter where people live they are able to receive high-quality healthcare services. There has been a very long-term cooperation between them and SA Health, the SA Ambulance Service and MedSTAR in providing both emergency retrieval services and also inter-hospital transfer services across the state.

I was very delighted in the past couple of weeks to announce a new contract. A new long-term contract has been signed between SA Health and the Royal Flying Doctor Service that is worth some $509 million over the course of the next decade. This enables our partnership to extend to 40 years of collaboration and service between the government and the Royal Flying Doctor Service in providing these services.

This contract covers those emergency retrieval services where MedSTAR staff—this is something I know the Minister for Human Services knows particularly well in her former life as a retrieval nurse—are able to go and provide those emergency services where fixed-wing aircraft are required on our vast distances across South Australia. The doctors and nurses and ambulance officers who work with MedSTAR and SA Ambulance will work with the nurses, pilots and ground crew with the Royal Flying Doctor Service to provide that.

Equally important is the inter-hospital transfer work that happens, both bringing people to Adelaide who require that high-level specialty treatment in our metropolitan hospitals and also, after they have completed their treatment or they are now stabilised, getting those people back home to their regional communities, closer to home. It is important for them to be closer to their families, but it is also important to help free up city hospitals.

We coordinate some 15 to 20 RFDS inter-hospital transfers each day. Together, MedSTAR and RFDS do an incredible job delivering this vital care and some 7,400 inter-hospital transfers and retrievals each year. This investment that we now make will significantly boost the capability of the RFDS to provide those important services, increasing the operations to four aircraft during the day and three overnight.

These aircraft and health services are, of course, funded through the government and taxpayers in a partnership reflecting that there will be SA Health branding on these aircraft. There will be an increase in terms of the RFDS staff. Some 23 additional FTEs are going in, including nurses, pilots, engineers, clinical support, and operations and communication staff.

Importantly, it also includes two dedicated nurses who will be stationed 24/7 at the RFDS base at Adelaide Airport to help the patients who are being transferred in or out of that service, to make sure that they get continuity in terms of their nursing care there and also make sure that the nursing staff who are involved in the flights can get back out onto the tarmac as quickly as possible to the next people who need them.

It also involves new KPIs, new faster responses, getting into the air within 20 minutes of being tasked, more than halving the previous target. I thank the RFDS for their work. We look forward to this important partnership continuing into the future.