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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-09-19 Daily Xml
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EMERGENCY DEPARTMENTS

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (14:43): My question is directed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Minister, how are South Australian hospital emergency departments performing?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (14:44): I thank the member for her question. I am very pleased to report that collectively South Australia's public hospitals have improved in all areas of emergency department performance between 2010-11 and 2011-12.

At the last election we committed $111 million to be spent over four years to improve performance in our emergency departments to make sure that every patient was able to get care as quickly as possible. I am pleased to advise the house that the growth in emergency department presentations was only 0.3 per cent between 2010-11 and 2011-12 and there has been an average of only 2 per cent growth between 2006-07 and 2010-11, which is the lowest growth rate in the nation.

When you take into account that we have the oldest population, people should understand that that is a huge achievement. Before our state Health Care Plan was introduced we were tracking at about 5 per cent per annum growth in the emergency department. So, by putting extra resources into the community and having extra systems in place we have been able to reduce the growth.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: I am pleased that the member for Bragg is interjecting. I assume that is in anticipation of taking over again as the shadow health minister once changes are made at the other end of the front bench. Despite this small amount of extra activity, the median waiting time in our emergency departments is now 15 minutes. That is down from 20 minutes in 2010-11. So, 50 per cent of patients are seen within 15 minutes. As we have hundreds of thousands of patients who go to our emergency departments that is a great tribute to the people who work in those departments. In fact, waiting times have steadily fallen since 2007-08, when national performance across the board has stayed relatively constant.

Seventy-six per cent of patients were seen on time by a doctor and nurse in 2011-12. That is five percentage points better than the previous year. In relation to our four-hour target—that is, the target to have 90 per cent of patients seen, treated and admitted or discharged within four hours—we are at 66 per cent as of June of this year for the calendar year 2012. We are well on our way to achieving the national target of 67 per cent by the end of 2012. We announced this target during the last election campaign. Subsequent to that, the commonwealth—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: She never stops, Madam Speaker; she just never stops.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: I know she would like to get up on her feet to ask questions about health, and I would invite her to do so.

Mr PISONI: I rise on a point of order. Members are to be addressed by their constituencies.

The SPEAKER: Order! I did not hear what the minister said, but there is no point of order.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The member for Unley is so quick to take offence. I say that the member for Bragg would love to be asking questions on health. It was cruelly taken away from her and one hopes that in the future she may get it back. I did enjoy having the member for Bragg as the shadow minister.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: I have enjoyed all five shadow ministers I have faced.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Minister, I refer you back to the question, please.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Indeed, Madam Speaker, if they did not interject I would not be distracted.

The SPEAKER: That is it. If you go across interjections you will get a response.

Mr WILLIAMS: Point of order. Was the minister then just arguing with you?

The SPEAKER: No, he was not. Thank you. Sit down.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: One could forgive the deputy leader for not understanding what an argument sounds like, but that was not an argument. Can I say that we embraced this target at the last state election. Subsequently, the commonwealth and all of the states have embraced it, so we have now adapted our target to be the same as the national one. We are well on our way to achieving 90 per cent of patients being seen, treated and admitted or discharged within four hours by the end of 2015. These results reflect the performance of our emergency departments 365 days of the year, as opposed to the gimmicky survey of last week which was conducted at 10 o'clock on Monday 3 September, where the results from our state were lumped in with the results of that of the Northern Territory and the ACT.

It is interesting to point out that the person who was responsible for the survey actually works in the emergency department, or is associated with the emergency department, of the ACT, which is a poorly performing hospital compared to our hospitals. Nonetheless, he lumped his results in with ours and then made some claims about our system based on one survey taken at 10 o'clock on a Monday morning. It is like taking the temperature in all of our cities, including Canberra, Darwin and Adelaide, and then making judgements about the weather here compared to the rest of Australia. Some of our improvements across the 2011-12 year have been assisted by the inclusion of country hospitals, which brings our reporting into line with other states and territories.

The SPEAKER: Minister, your time has well and truly expired.

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