Elective Surgery, Private Providers

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:03): Will all the funding for private hospitals come from existing public hospital budgets? If so, what will those public hospitals have to forgo to fund services under the contract?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:03): I thank the member for that last question, being nonetheless a supplementary one, because it shows the hypocrisy of the Labor Party in relation to this. The Labor Party had a large number—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! It's not even humorous. Minister, get on with it.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: The opposition is shameless in its hypocrisy in relation to this matter. They criticise us for partnering with the private sector. That has been a feature of the South Australian public health system for decades, including the 16 years that they were in public office.

Let's think about some of the examples. In terms of directly purchasing private hospital activity, the winter demand strategies that were issued by the former Labor government specifically provided for private hospital bed capacity being purchased by the public system. There are numerous individual LHN contracts purchasing private hospital bed activity under the former Labor governments, so what is the sin we have committed?

The sin we have committed is that instead of having an ad hoc non-strategic approach to contract management, what we are putting in place is a structured, organised approach. That will, in my view, lead to better quality oversight. It will provide better purchasing power for the taxpayer dollar. It will allow us to have better planning, more streamlined coordination of services, less red tape and, very importantly, more timely responses.

One of the key benefits of the public sector having the capacity to access private hospital capacity from time to time is to deal with peaks of demand. There isn't much point in trying to engage the private sector to manage a peak in demand if you have to go through a long procurement process so that by the time the procurement process is completed the peak has well and truly passed.

This will lead, I believe, to a much better framework within which public hospital managers can engage private hospital resources as needed. For the public patients of South Australia, the benefit is very clear. It means the opportunity for reduced waiting times for elective procedures and care closer to their homes. We are very committed to driving high-quality, value-for-money services for South Australians, and this is an important step in delivering on that commitment.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Wortley, a supplementary.