ACT Government exceeds national average on hospital beds

Acting ACT Chief Minister and Minister for Health, Andrew Barr, said today that the ACT Government had continued to deliver more hospital beds and increased the efficiency of services.

Mr Barr was commenting on the 2012 Report on Government Services issued by the Productivity Commission today.

"In 2009-10, ACT public hospitals provided 2.6 beds per 1000 people, exceeding the major cities national average of 2.5 beds per 1000 people," Mr Barr said.

"The ACT rate is well above the 2.2 beds reported in 2005-06 thanks to the investment this Government has made in bed numbers.

"In fact, we have increased our hospital beds at a far greater rate than other states and territories. Our public hospital capacity has grown from 875 beds in 2008-09 to 907 beds in 2009-10, which represents a 3.7 percent increase for the ACT compared to 0.7 percent growth nationally.

"When we first came to office, the Liberal Government had reduced beds and we had just 670 public hospital beds available," he said.

Mr Barr said the efforts of our staff had also delivered significant improvements in emergency care and elective surgery.

"Importantly, 100 percent patients arriving at our Emergency Departments with the most urgent conditions are seen immediately. 82 percent of category two patients were also seen on time in 2010-11, better than the national average. This was despite a 5.1 percent increase in presentations to Emergency Departments," Mr Barr said.

Further work is being done in the less urgent categories to further improve the efficiency of services, including increased staffing and the establishment of new services such as:

• the Medical Assessment and Planning Unit providing fast transfer to treatment for more complex patients arriving at the ED
• a Walk-in Centre, to provide quick access to medical care for people with one-off, less serious and non-chronic conditions, and
• the Surgical Assessment Planning Unit which provides the capacity to quickly transfer surgical patients presenting to the ED.

Significant efforts are also going in to elective surgery, with a record 11,338 operations undertaken in 2010-11, representing an increase of 1560 or 16 percent on the 9778 recorded the previous year.

"As part of our commitment to further improving access to elective surgery, we are working with the private sector to provide additional operations over and above those provided publically. Since this started in 2010-11, 380 operations have been conducted, in Ear, Nose & Throat, Urology and Orthopaedics," Mr Barr said.

"The results are starting to show. Performance for the first six months of 2011-12 indicates 5742 people accessed elective surgery in the ACT, a 5 percent increase on the same period last year.

"It is also heartening to see the median waiting time for elective surgery improve from 70 days in the year to December 2010 to 59 days for the same period in 2011.

"I’d like to congratulate all our dedicated health staff, our doctors and nurses, allied health professionals and all the support staff, for continuing to work hard to deliver an even better service to our community," Mr Barr concluded.