Ambulance Ramping

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (14:33): Further supplementary: will the minister confirm that ramping is more than twice as bad as it was when the Marshall Liberal government came to office 18 months ago?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:33): It would be in that order, but let's be clear: ramping significantly increased when the former government—the then Weatherill government—opened the Royal Adelaide Hospital in a completely botched way. This brings me back to the point I was making about bed capacity. The Royal Adelaide Hospital was not designed, built and planned to operate at 100 per cent capacity, yet since the hospital was opened it has been operating at about 98 per cent capacity. It's operated at 100 per cent capacity or more on 257 occasions. This is not a hospital that is working.

This government, under the leadership of the CALHN board and Lesley Dwyer, as the CEO, working in partnership with KordaMentha, has undertaken a whole range of initiatives that are giving us the capacity to restore surge capacity. It was never designed to operate at 100 per cent; no hospital operates effectively when it is packed to the rafters.

A 12 per cent reduction in the average length of stay has effectively provided the equivalent of 45 hospital beds. The work with the integrated care coordinator position has saved more than 1,300 bed days in six months, and EDGE, a specialist geriatric team, has saved 550 beds in six months. It is the hard work of the board, the CEO and their partners in CALHN which is delivering the improvements in operations in the hospital that is giving us the surge capacity, which I believe is vital to eliminating ramping.