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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-10-15 Daily Xml
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SA Health

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:04): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Health and Wellbeing a question about data record keeping and reporting by SA Health.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Mr Ridgway, I don't need advice.

The Hon. R.I. Lucas interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Treasurer, please stop. The Hon. Ms Bonaros, can you please do me the courtesy of starting again?

The Hon. C. BONAROS: Thank you, Mr President. I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Health and Wellbeing a question about data record keeping and reporting by SA Health.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C. BONAROS:The Advertiser today reported that CALHN's new data integrity unit had stumbled on $54 million missing from its accounts. The problem was exposed as being in poor coding of services and procedures where hospitals are paid for services they provide by the commonwealth. If the coding describing the service is incorrect, then so is the payment. Fortunately for the taxpayers of South Australia, the cash has been identified and recovered. However, it is believed millions more may have disappeared due to slack data record keeping and reporting that has been going on for years. My questions to the minister are:

1. Are you disappointed with your department, in that this systemic problem, which has the potential to cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, has only just been discovered?

2. Have you been advised that further examples of incompetent data record keeping and reporting by SA Health have been discovered, and what are the amounts involved?

3. Do you believe that there are further examples of incompetent data record keeping and reporting by SA Health that are yet to be discovered?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:06): I thank the honourable member for her questions. Fundamentally, I would like to pay tribute to the work of the KordaMentha team, the Central Adelaide Local Health Network board, the Central Adelaide Local Health Network CEO (Lesley Dwyer) and the data integrity unit at CALHN for the work that has been done.

The honourable member highlights the historical detriment. I have no doubt that up until this initiative millions of dollars—tens of millions of dollars—was lost and that if this initiative had not been taken that would have continued for an undefined period. It is completely unacceptable that good data record keeping and reporting was not maintained at CALHN, and I commend what is basically a new team for identifying this issue.

I know that there are some who would like me to focus on, if you like, punitive measures against people who have managed the health system in the past, but to be frank, I hold the former Labor government responsible for 16 years of mismanagement. And to be frank, many of the people who were in leadership roles under that government are no longer in the Public Service.

My focus is on making sure that we manage the system well now. I am very pleased that the data integrity unit has delivered a very sustained effort in terms of recovery. If I could be so—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Minister, hold for a moment. Can the opposition benches please show the minister some respect, and also the Hon. Ms Bonaros, who is sitting a long way from the minister and would like to hear the response to her question. Minister.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Thank you, Mr President. I can certainly sympathise with the Hon. Connie Bonaros. It is difficult to hear the answer as I deliver it, let alone hear the answer as it is being received. My observation is that there seems to be a direct relationship between the loudness of Labor's interjections and the hollowness of their arguments.

The fact of the matter is that under their watch—over 16 years—they failed to put in place good financial management. That's why when they left power there was a $300 million budget overspend in CALHN on an annual basis. If the people of South Australia had not taken the opportunity to put in place a workmanlike government, can you imagine there would have been any prospect of that $300 million haemorrhaging stopping?

As a demonstration of that, what did we have in this morning's media? I hope it is not inappropriate to mention radio stations. We had the shadow minister for health in the other place criticising us for employing coders. I'm sorry; he was criticising us for putting in place the teams that are needed to deal with the backlog because, to be frank, not only did we have around 2,000 records where the coding was not accurate but my understanding is that we had between 9,000 and 14,000 records that just had not been coded.

It was a backlog. It is a bit like a plumber spending all year running around the suburbs fixing people's pipes and then not bothering to send them an invoice. How do you maintain a business like that? To be frank, how do you maintain a government like they did?

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