Little improvement in public hospital capacity and performance despite extra funding

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that there had been little improvement in public hospital capacity and performance despite significant extra Commonwealth funding as part of the National Healthcare Agreement and specific funding for an elective surgery ‘blitz’.

The AMA Public Hospital Report Card 2010 is an analysis of the most recent publicly available national data on public hospital performance plus more recent feedback from doctors working in public hospitals in all States and Territories.

Dr Pesce said the most telling finding of the report card is that there were only 11 new hospital beds opened across Australia during the 2008-09 reporting period.

“This falls well short of the AMA’s estimate that 3,870 additional beds are needed for the public hospital system to operate at a safe 85 per cent average bed occupancy rate.

“From the AMA analysis, the Commonwealth Government’s additional funding of $150 million for an elective surgery ‘blitz’ did not get the desired results.

“The ‘blitz’ did not result in additional elective surgeries over and above the number that normally would have been expected to have been performed in 2008-09.

“The extra funding may instead have simply compensated the States and Territories for the increasing costs of providing elective surgery services.

“Median waiting times for elective surgery have remained static at an average of 34 days, and well behind the average of 27 days seven years ago.

“This all means that there was no real increase in the capacity of public hospitals to admit patients to wards from emergency departments more quickly or to perform more elective surgeries.

“It also means that hospitals, particularly the large metropolitan hospitals, are frequently running at unsafe occupancy levels.

“There have been slight improvements nationally in the percentage of emergency department patients being seen within recommended times, but still a long way short of the targets set by COAG.

“But public hospitals will continue to struggle to meet emergency department targets unless capacity in all areas of the hospitals is expanded to allow patients in emergency departments to be admitted more quickly.

“The AMA remains concerned that people who are waiting to see a specialist to be assessed for surgery are not being counted in the waiting list data.

“This means that we effectively still have a waiting list to get on the waiting list,” Dr Pesce said.

Dr Pesce said that the AMA wants an accountability framework that will hold governments to account for their role in funding and supporting hospitals into the future so that they have the capacity to meet demand and provide safe patient care.

“The AMA maintains that the 60/40 funding split between the Commonwealth and the States does not end the blame game – only a single public funder will deliver on that commitment.”

Dr Pesce said the report card shows that it is critical that local doctors are centrally involved in the governance and decision-making of the new Local Hospital Networks.

“We need to ensure that extra funding directly translates to extra services and extra beds.  Local doctors know local needs.  They know the right number and types of beds needed to meet the demands of the local population.

“We also need robust, long-term data collection so that we can have proper year on year monitoring and analysis of hospital capacity and performance.

“This should include adoption of the AMA’s Bedwatch system to publicly report on the number of new and existing beds available in public hospitals.

“Governments must also provide greater support for mainstream general practice to reduce the demands of acute and chronic disease on the public hospitals.”

Dr Pesce said the AMA acknowledges the dedicated and hardworking doctors, nurses and other health professionals who care for patients in public hospitals and hold the system together.

A copy of the AMA Public Hospital Report Card 2010 can be found here.

18 November 2010

CONTACT:              John Flannery                    02 6270 5477 / 0419 494 761

                            Geraldine Kurukchi              02 6270 5467 / 0427 209 753

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