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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-06-19 Daily Xml
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Health Workforce

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (14:35): Yes. If they are only targets, if the 1,140 staff are not made redundant or moved on, will you be able to make your budget savings?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:35): The health portfolio is looking at a whole range of efficiency measures. Perhaps it might help the house to understand the FTE figure in the context of one of the very significant initiatives that has been taken in the previous year. Apparently, the former Labor government thought it was appropriate to employ a lot of agency nurses in the Central Adelaide Local Health Network. In January 2018, just two months before this government took office, 7.7 per cent of the workforce was agency nursing staff. The financial implications of that were millions of dollars going to private companies, not into delivery of nursing care, because, on average, I am advised, for an agency nurse you are paying a premium 40 per cent—

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN: Point of order: relevance. The question was about the current budget and the targets, not about history a few years ago.

The PRESIDENT: The question was on the budget and it was a supplementary and the minister is attempting to answer. He has some leeway.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I appreciate the Hon. Clare Scriven's embarrassment at the mismanagement of the former Labor government, but I just ask her to sit there and take the medicine. Under her government, under her party's former government—

The Hon. C.M. Scriven: I wasn't even in parliament.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Well, if she wants to disown the Weatherill government, I can fully understand why. Let me stress: under the former Weatherill Labor government, in January 2018, 7.7 per cent of the agency nursing staff workforce at CALHN in the Royal Adelaide Hospital and The QEH was agency staff. That is paying a 40 per cent premium. Through the good work of the CALHN management, working with KordaMentha, by March 2009, that has been brought down to 0.7 per cent.

That means that you have actually got more efficient delivery of nursing care, better quality of care, and we are actually saving money, and we actually have more nurses. It is what you would expect of a party that is going to back the nurses. We are providing full-time work for nurses; in fact, that particular measure will actually mean our FTE count of salaried staff would go up. In terms of last year's target, the Treasurer might correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that, by driving down those agency costs, that was the equivalent of an FTE estimate.

That actually meant delivery on our FTE targets, we are actually employing more nurses rather than reducing the number of nurses, and we are saving millions of dollars for the South Australian taxpayer. I am having trouble finding a loser here. To me, it is a win-win situation when you have a government that manages the system properly.

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