Baillieu Challenges Brumby To Build For Growth With New $1 Billion Health Fund

*Coalition calls for the dedication of gaming licence revenue to rebuild hospitals, additional beds and medical equipment

*Time for real action instead of talk to meet health needs of Victorian families

Victorian Liberal Nationals Coalition Leader Ted Baillieu proposed the dedication of gaming licence revenue to significantly improve facilities in the Victorian public health system with additional hospital beds, new and improved health equipment, mental health facilities and the rebuilding and upgrading of hospitals.

Speaking at the Victorian Liberal Party State Council meeting in Melbourne, Mr Baillieu proposed the establishment of a $1 billion Health Infrastructure Fund to improve the future health facilities of our state.

Mr Baillieu called on John Brumby to direct proceeds from the sale of electronic gaming machine (EGM) licences, conservatively estimated at $1 billion, towards a Health Infrastructure Fund to start rebuilding Victoria’s rundown health system.

“I challenge John Brumby to tell Victorians what better purpose he has for these funds than rebuilding our struggling hospitals and health system,” Mr Baillieu said today.

Mr Baillieu said growth and demand into the future would place real pressure on health services and hospitals and required real action now instead of talk and empty promises.

“Victoria’s hospitals are in crisis and our health system is in decline. Much of this is because of John Brumby’s failure to invest for the future,” Mr Baillieu said.

“We now have the unique opportunity of a financial windfall provided by the EGM licence sale. These funds should be directed into health infrastructure.

“We have a unique opportunity to rebuild our health and hospital infrastructure.

“John Brumby has been posturing around Australia on health, while hospital infrastructure has been allowed to run down in Victoria. If the Premier is serious about rebuilding our hospital infrastructure he will not simply try to blame the Commonwealth, he will commit the huge windfall in state funds now becoming available to the rebuilding of our hospital and health infrastructure.

“In government, we will take any uncommitted proceeds of the sale of gaming licences and place them in the Health Infrastructure Fund.

“Failing infrastructure, a chronic shortage of hospital beds and a rapidly growing and ageing population mean that health services are struggling to meet the needs of Victorian families.

“As Victoria grows, so does the pressure on essential health services and our hospitals. But all we have from John Brumby is 11 years of talk and no action.

“The sale of these licences is a one-off opportunity to invest in significantly upgrading health facilities and equipment – an investment which is desperately needed by Victorian families and our growing population,” Mr Baillieu said.

Mr Baillieu said examples of the health improvements that could be funded by a $1 billion Health Infrastructure Fund included:

*more than 2,500 acute hospital beds; or

*more than 5,400 sub-acute beds; or

*upgrades and rebuilding of run down and neglected regional hospitals; or

*new mental health facilities; or

*new medical equipment, dialysis units and operating theatres; or

*new ambulances and station facilities and community health services.

“A Health Infrastructure Fund means we can start building now for the growth to come,” Mr Baillieu said.

“Public hospitals in Victoria would benefit from this fund, whether it is by way of additional beds, medical equipment, upgrades or reconstruction.

“This investment in health facilities and equipment for Victorian families would mean real action and outcomes instead of just talk.

“A Health Infrastructure Fund could allocate funds to regional and rural hospitals, community health services, mental health and dental health equipment and facilities based on demand, need, population growth and hard evidence from practitioners and experts.

“The Health Infrastructure Fund would operate in addition to ongoing annual contributions to hospital and health infrastructure from the State Budget and funding provided by the Commonwealth Government.

“In Victoria today, nearly 38,400 people are currently waiting on public lists for elective surgery, with countless more Victorians on hidden waiting lists.

“Time to treatment is growing alarmingly – when Labor was elected in 1999, a patient would wait an average of 35 days for semi-urgent surgery, but today that figure has blown out to 50 days.

“And according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Victoria can no longer claim to have the best-performing hospitals in Australia.

“Our emergency departments are overflowing with a record number of Victorians walking out rather than waiting hours for care, we have the lowest number of hospital beds per person of any state, hospital waiting lists have been systematically manipulated and we have the highest rate of unplanned patient re-admission in the nation.

“John Brumby has failed to plan for health and hospital services that are vital to cope with our needs, and he selectively hands out capital funding for health services from a pork barrel with no long-term planning for sustainable hospital resources and services.

“These funds would provide a dedicated additional funding stream to rebuild and secure our hospital and health system for the future.

“I call on John Brumby to take this opportunity and ensure gaming machine licence revenue is spent on much-needed health equipment and facilities,” Mr Baillieu said.

Hospital Data To Be Publicly Available

A Baillieu Coalition Government will overhaul access to information about Victorian hospitals by requiring data on the performance of our public hospital emergency departments (EDs) to be made publicly accessible online in real time.

For the first time ever Victorians will be able to monitor from their homes how many people are waiting in the ED of their local hospital, current waiting times, and whether ambulances are being accepted or sent away from the hospital.

Victorian Liberal Nationals Coalition Leader Ted Baillieu said Victorians deserved to know the truth about their hospitals and should be able to compare the performance of different EDs.

“The Brumby Government’s record of cover-up and manipulation of hospital waiting lists means it cannot be trusted to tell Victorians the truth about our hospitals,” Mr Baillieu said.

“Last year the Auditor-General found that important data used to assess hospital performance, allocate funds, and report to government and the public on ED performance were flawed because of the Brumby Government’s data manipulation.

“A Baillieu Government will end the cover-up and manipulation and be open and accountable with Victorians by making key performance data for emergency departments available to the public via a website.

“Hospital EDs help vulnerable Victorians facing critical health risks, so ED performance is critical to patient confidence and all Victorians.

“Our overhaul of reporting and transparency means Victorians will be able to view and assess for themselves the performance of their local hospital ED and hospital EDs across the state, which will inform their personal health decisions,” Mr Baillieu said.

The website will make available for the first time key hospital performance data in real time including:

*ED attendances by urgency (triage) category;

*ED attendances and median waiting time;

*ED admissions;

*current ED activity;

*a weekly ED activity report;

*the number of ED patients with a length of stay greater than 24 hours;

*the number of mental health patients waiting longer than 8 hours in the ED for admission;

*ambulance attendances;

*ambulance diversions, including both ambulance bypass and Hospital Early Warning System (HEWS) incidences; and

*the number of ambulance “ramping” occasions and ramping in hours (“ramping” occurs when a patient has to wait in the ambulance at the hospital because there are no free beds in the hospital).

Data will be available from all Victorian public hospitals which are currently included in the Your Hospitals report.
Mr Baillieu said other states such as Western Australia had already introduced such websites – see http://www.health.wa.gov.au/emergencyactivity/home/ – and there was no reason that Victorians should not benefit from such transparency.

The website would be fully operational by June 2011 with an initial budgetary commitment of $4 million over four years.

The website would be administered by the Department of Health with daily data updates in addition to real time information such as whether the hospital was on by pass..

“It’s time to end the hiding of key statistics and important information about the performance of our public hospital emergency departments which is par for the course under John Brumby,” Mr Baillieu said.

The Auditor-General’s Access to Public Hospitals: Measuring Performance report in April 2009 stated that: ‘Open and transparent reporting is fundamental to making a fair assessment of performance and accountability’ but also pointed out that the Brumby Government’s ‘method chosen for presenting performance over time against the emergency access indicators [in the Your Hospitals report] does not provide the reader with a readily accessible view of performance trends’.

The Auditor-General also found ‘Given that access indicators are a core part of the accountability framework under which hospitals operate, it is most concerning that the audit found fundamental flaws both with data accuracy and the rigour of data capture processes…Unfortunately, it is one of the findings of this audit that the reliability of access performance data by public hospitals cannot be assured…Your Hospitals is also limited in that it excludes…the indicator measuring waits of more than 24 hours in the emergency department. These indicators report against experiences the public can readily understand and are useful in presenting a comprehensive picture of health system performance’.

In addition, the Brumby Government has never declared ambulance ramping data, with the only available data being released by the Ambulance Employees Union and widespread reports of ambulance ramping being swept under the carpet by John Brumby and Health Minister Daniel Andrews.

The Brumby Government has also refused to release Hospital Early Warning System data because it would be embarrassing for Labor, with the only HEWs data in the public domain included in the Auditor-General’s May 2004 report entitled Managing emergency demand in public hospitals and information recently provided by Ambulance Victoria to the Upper House health inquiry.

The Coalition plan will improve measurement of access to emergency care by ambulances as recommended in the Auditor General’s report, which noted: ’The ability of patients, transported by ambulance, to access the most appropriate hospital quickly can be a matter of life or death’. The Coalition plan will reflect the Auditor-General’s call to ’address the need to measure hospital performance in both their ability to be available to ambulance arrivals, as well as the timeliness with which they accept patients arrived by ambulance’.

The Council of Australian Governments has called for greater transparency in health system reporting and accountability and the Coalition’s plan would significantly improve the openness and accountability of Victoria’s emergency departments and their responsiveness to the Victorian community.

“Our plan will improve patient knowledge and choice and provide greater accountability and integrity and is an important first step in restoring integrity to the Victorian health system after years of Labor spin and deception.

“This website and the data available from it form part of a serious commitment by the Coalition to improve the integrity, reliability and accuracy of health information and data accessible by the Victorian public.

“Victorian taxpayers deserve the truth about our hospitals instead of more deception from a self-serving manipulative Labor Government,” Mr Baillieu said.