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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-10-18 Daily Xml
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HEALTH, ORACLE CORPORATE SYSTEM

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite) (15:04): My question is, again, to the Minister for Health. Is an ongoing failure and mismanagement linked to the $33 million Oracle—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: —Corporate System one reason why the Auditor-General has qualified his report into the Central Adelaide Local Health Network and Country Health SA Local Health Network?

The SPEAKER: Member for Waite, can you repeat the question?

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Is an ongoing failure and mismanagement linked to the Oracle corporate system one reason why the Auditor-General has qualified his report into those two health networks? It's a question.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: I do take a point of order. That is plainly argument.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Madam Speaker, it is a question. I have asked: is an ongoing failure in mismanagement the cause?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I will let that question go, but it is very close. The wording of it is 'is an ongoing'. I will allow it. You are not saying there is, but is it?

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Correct. With your leave, I will explain, Madam Speaker. The Auditor-General has said in his report that he has been unable to obtain sufficient audit evidence to conclude that financial reports have not been materially misstated in respect of supplies and services, payables, revenues from fees and charges, receivables, and cash and cash equivalents; and, in the case of Country SA Health staff, benefits and expenses. Between them, these two health networks manage the Royal Adelaide Hospital, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Glenside, Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre and all country hospitals in SA.

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (15:06): I thank the member for the question. I must say that it did include argument and assessment by the member of the views that were taken by the Auditor-General, but I will deal with the substance of the question rather than involve myself in a political discussion about it.

The first thing is I should point out to the house that all of the health entities provided their reports on time for the very first time in the history of the health department this year, so they were all reported on by the Auditor-General. I understand that he gave a much stronger tick of approval to the reports of all of those entities this year. The starting point for some of the reports was qualified as a result of the previous year's work, but I understand that the final point of each of the areas was unqualified.

There have been issues with the IT system, which have been explored before in question time and during estimates and at other times, and it is not something we resile from. We are introducing a system-wide approach to managing the financial procurement and other administrative systems in the health system. It is fair to say that Health did not properly anticipate the work that was required to bring in this new system and there have been problems with the introduction of it. They have now substantially addressed that and I will shortly be going to cabinet seeking approval to go through the next stages of the Oracle system. The Auditor-General, of course, makes the point that introducing Oracle and fully implementing it is what we need to do.

I accept that there have been problems. They have largely been addressed and they will be completely addressed with the complete rollout of the Oracle system. What we have been doing over the last 10 years or so is taking a whole lot of what are essentially cottage industry-based approaches to all of these systems, because every hospital had its own systems—IT systems, financial systems, recruitment systems, procurement systems and clinical systems. All of them were based around individual hospitals and we have been building up a system-wide approach to how we run the health system.

That is highly problematic when you are dealing with 39,000 people, a million-plus patients, 70 or 80 or so sites, and all of the money that is involved, and all that. It has been a monumentally difficult job to go from that cottage-based system to a modern contemporary system, but we are well on the way now and I look forward to being able to report to the house when we are further down the track. I accept the basis of the analysis by the Auditor-General: we do need to do more, and we are doing it.

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