Health Care Standards
Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: I ask the Minister for Health a question without notice. Is the Minister aware that a report in the Medical Journal of Australia claims that Australian governments are not doing enough to ensure quality of service and safety standards in hospitals? Is the Minister aware that at the time of the report, up to 16 per cent of hospitalised patients suffered adverse outcomes during their stay, 50 per cent of which were considered preventable? Will the Minister outline what measures the New South Wales Government is taking to develop a strategy to prevent adverse outcomes in our hospitals? Will the Minister assure the House that all of the findings of adverse outcomes at Camden and Campbelltown hospitals have been implemented?
The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: It was interesting to read the article on the front page of yesterday’s edition of the Sydney Morning Herald and also to watch the Opposition spokesperson, Mrs Skinner, warmly embrace the contents of the article, making a big blurb on morning radio about how New South Wales ought to do more. What she did not do was to go beyond the newspaper article and read the article in the Medical Journal of Australia. If she had read that article she would have known that it made the point that other States should follow what New South Wales has been doing on this matter. In other words, the shadow Minister for Health criticised New South Wales over an article that she had not read or researched and which endorsed the New South Wales approach.
The New South Wales Government is investing $55 million to establish the Patient Safety and Clinical Quality Program. The program contains systems and structures to support continuous improvement of health care in New South Wales including: the systematic management of incidents and risks; a new statewide Incident Information Management System; establishment of a Clinical Governance Unit in each area health service; a Quality Assessment Program for all public health organisations; and the establishment of the Clinical Excellence Commission [CEC] under Professor Cliff Young.
The incident management system is underpinned by a statewide incident information management system allowing the New South Wales public health system to capture all incidents in a way that we have never been able to do before. The system provides an approach to incident management that assists health care professionals to understand why incidents occur, and to take action to improve patient safety. Implementation of the incident management system and ongoing staff education in patient safety has led to an increasing number of incidents being reported—proof positive of an increasingly open culture and increasing staff confidence in the system. Further evidence of our commitment to openness to the community is the publication of the document entitled “First Report on Incident Management” in January 2005.
To support this culture of openness, the Government has amended the Health Administration Act to give statutory privilege to teams conducting investigations of serious incidents. An important component of that program is the process for managing complaints or concerns about a clinician. The recent amendment to the Health Services Act 1997 requires the area health service chief executive officer to notify relevant registration boards when the service has reasonable grounds to suspect a clinician of professional misconduct or unsatisfactory professional conduct. A dedicated Clinical Governance Unit has been established in each area health service to oversee effective incident and complaints management.
The clinical governance units are responsible for implementing the Patient Safety and Clinical Quality Program and are led by an experienced clinician reporting directly to the area health service chief executive. Clinical governance units also provide a single point of contact for complaints from members of the public and staff. The implementation of the New South Wales Patient Safety and Clinical Quality Program is overseen by the CEC. The CEC brings together expert clinicians to identify best practice and promote its adoption across New South Wales public hospitals. The CEC will undertake comprehensive analysis of incident data and review actions following the investigation of serious incidents.
The commission will also review local patient safety and clinical quality programs within area health services to ensure continuous improvement in patient safety and clinical quality. The New South Wales Government is leading the country in the reporting and the investigation of medical incidents. I assure the House that patient safety and improved clinical quality are high priorities for the Government.
Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: I ask the Minister a supplementary question. I thank him for his generic reply, which obviously was prepared for the shadow Minister in the other place, but I ask specifically, will he assure this House that all of the findings of adverse outcomes at the Camden and Campbelltown hospitals have been implemented, as promised by his predecessor?
The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: All of those are in the process of being implemented. As Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes would know, some Coroner’s reports have not yet been concluded, we are still awaiting the outcomes of those, but the process continues. The Government has been open and transparent in this issue. An important part of that has been the establishment of a particular set of arrangements including the clinical governance units and the Clinical Excellence Commission, the incident management system, which requires the reporting of adverse events, and the requirement for all serious incidents to be the subject of root cause analysis. All those processes are under way.
