SA Health has stopped short of committing to fully implementing recommendations from its own review based on a week of trials across the health system designed to improve its performance.
Key points:
- SA Health cancelled non-clinical work and regular meetings for a week in May
- The aim was to observe where bottlenecks were happening in the system
- The head of SA Health says recommendations from the week will be “examined”
SA Health held what it called “Focus Week” from May 15 to 21, in which it cancelled non-clinical work and regular meetings.
It aimed to allow staff to observe how patients moved through the system and identify where bottlenecks were occurring and what double-ups could be dumped.
During Focus Week SA Health extended the opening hours of its priority care centres, increased the use of its at-home hospital care program, and did its best to discharge patients who had been stuck in its wards.
Nearly three months later, SA Health has released its review of Focus Week which finds that despite a more than 6 per cent increase in triple-0 calls and a small increase in emergency department presentations, there was an 8 per cent decrease in the number of hours lost to ramping during that week.
SA Health chief executive Robyn Lawrence said while there is still capacity for improvement, the results were encouraging.
“I think what we’ve seen is a continual improvement trajectory over winter which is reassuring,” she said.
“But we still acknowledge we have got a long way to go to get our system to where we would really like it to be.”
The most recent statistics show from May to June there was a 5.8 per cent increase in hours lost to ramping.
Dr Lawrence said external factors such as GP shortages and a lack of long-term care options were still clogging up hospitals.
“The system is very complex and the inter-relationship between what is going on in primary care … residential care and NDIS continue to impact us,” she said.
“We’ve got an ongoing commitment to reducing the hours lost, as well as the ambulance response times, and we continue to desire to do better.
“Overall, though, it showed despite that we made some good gains in that week.”
Doctors and nurses told SA Health it was often still too hard to discharge patients on a weekend to free up beds.
“If you need additional resources in spaces such as home care, sometimes they can’t be accessed on weekends… so we’re addressing things where we can,” Dr Lawrence said
The opposition called on the state government to explain what it will do with the recommendations.
“We need a government that’s focused on fixing ramping every week of the year, not just during Focus Week,” opposition spokesman John Gardner said.
“These recommendations have been informed by clinicians, they deserve serious consideration.”
Dr Lawrence said SA Health would examine, rather than commit to, all of the recommendations from Focus Week.
“This was a one-week period… and it’s not necessarily reflective that each of those would be successful over a much longer period of time,” she said.
Health Minister Chris Picton said the aim of Focus Week was to identify barriers and trial solutions and was “never meant to be the answer itself”.
“It was pleasing to see improved results during this week, when non-urgent work such as meetings were postponed, but we know it’s not a quick fix,” he said.
“Delivering long-term results requires more hospital beds and healthcare staff and that is exactly what the Malinauskas Labor Government is providing.
“…By the end of next year, there will be more than 150 additional beds opened across the system.”
