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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-06-15 Daily Xml
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Virtual Healthcare Services

Mr FULBROOK (Playford) (14:36): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. How is the government boosting virtual healthcare services to address hospital overcrowding?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:37): As we have talked about in this house previously, this government is tackling every part of the patient journey and the health system to address the issues that we face, right from the 000 call, right through to helping people discharge out of hospital, and there is one key area in which there is more focus that is coming in today's budget and that's in relation to virtual care services.

We know we need more beds in terms of the health system. Previous budgets delivered that, and we have many of those sites underway at the moment with more to come. But we know that there are people who can get their care without having to come to an emergency department and that's not only better for the health system overall but it's better for those patients in particular.

Just yesterday, the Treasurer, the Premier and I had the pleasure of visiting the Women's and Children's Hospital and visiting the team that provides the virtual care services, the child and adolescent virtual care services (CAVUCS). It means that now it's been expanded to the whole state you are able to log on, connect to that service, speak to doctors and nurses at the Women's and Children's Hospital and, in many cases—in fact, about 90 per cent of those cases that connect to that service—avoid a trip to hospital that's unnecessary.

The doctors and nurses who work there are incredibly skilled in terms of their ability to help people through teleconferencing. They are able to connect people with other local services. They are able to connect people with prescriptions that they may require. We know that there's a big issue that we are facing in relation to primary health care and GPs across South Australia and the whole country at the moment, and clearly that's one of the factors that's leading to an increased demand of that service.

This is a service that was only established on a temporary basis under COVID. There was no ongoing funding for that service. We are now making the service permanent and putting that money in the budget to make it operate into the future. In addition, the South Australian Virtual Care Services that operate out of Tonsley have doctors, nurses and paramedics there who really do a number of factors in terms of helping to avoid hospitals: one is helping paramedics. Whether it be through secondary triage that will be done on 000 calls that come in, whether it's being done in terms of paramedics who arrive on the scene and need additional help from a doctor or nurse at the Virtual Care Service, that's being provided.

The other element we introduced last year that is proving successful and we really want to expand on now is in relation to the virtual calls that we can do into residential aged-care facilities, because for a lot of people who live in residential aged care, who have a fall or have another ailment and can't get a doctor to come out and see them, often they've got no choice but to take that resident to the emergency department.

That's obviously more pressure on the health system, but it's also often a worse outcome for that person because taking somebody out of their home environment, particularly when they might be frail and very elderly, is not necessarily a great outcome for them. So having that ability to virtually consult the doctor and maybe order a mobile X-ray to come around the next day in many cases can be a better option than going to the emergency department.

The third element of what we have announced is that in the last couple of months we have established the Health Control Centre. This is being run out of the Tonsley service as well and ultimately will move to our new Emergency Operations Centre with SA Ambulance. That's enabling eyes on the system 24 hours a day right from 000 calls through to discharging patients at the other end. It's the first time that that's been in operation. Having those clinicians being able to step in and predict issues is really important.

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