SA Health

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (14:31): Is the minister then considering privatising or outsourcing any out-of-hospital programs or patient transfer services that are currently provided within the public health service and, if he is, which ones is he considering?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:32): I would suggest that the honourable member might read the election policies that this government took to the election. If the honourable member would like to see what we said in opposition, we have been completely transparent that we would rebalance the health system. What we said in our policy was that we would:

…better manage complex health conditions for the populations which are most at risk of being high consumers of hospital care so that their quality of life is better and unnecessary hospital-based care is minimised;

We committed:

To provide as much care in the community as possible, where it is safe to do so…

Later in the same policy, released before the election and resoundingly endorsed by the people of South Australia at the election, we said:

This focus on avoiding hospital admission will be championed by Wellbeing SA, a new prevention-focused team within SA Health.

Wellbeing SA will broker collaborations involving Local Health Networks, Primary Health Networks, general practitioners, non-government organisations and the private sector to jointly deliver prevention, virtual hospital, sub-acute and chronic disease management services to the people they serve.

We are not ashamed of delivering better value-for-money services for South Australians. We will continue to partner with NGOs if that delivers better outcomes for South Australians.