MENTAL HEALTH BEDS

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:42): I have a supplementary question. I refer to the minister's comments in her response where she South Australia id that the government would be monitoring demand in the context of capacity and it would be easy to increase the capacity if the need arose.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Wade wanted to ask a supplementary question; not make a statement.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: How can the government responsibly say that it is providing for future capacity growth when it has announced a change to the PPP process to allow for capacity growth and no such provision was made for the forensic mental health facility?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Environment and Conservation, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister Assisting the Minister for Health) (14:43): I have already said there will be 40 beds built in a new forensic mental health facility. There will be 40 new additional secure beds provided at the Glenside site. The new forensic mental health facility will be able to be expanded easily; it will be designed in a way that will allow it to expand to meet our needs. We will monitor that demand accordingly. It will be a new, state-of-the-art facility that will provide a high degree of efficiencies.

Currently, we have a 30-bed forensic mental health facility and a 10-bed forensic mental health facility. The new facility will consolidate those. There will be efficiencies there and it will be a far better, more efficient and more effective model of care. We will be watching to see how it works. It will be providing a better quality of care. We assume that it will produce better and quicker recovery outcomes. This is what we hope for. As I said, we will need to monitor this and develop and expand our services accordingly.