SA Health embroiled in new industrial row as unions vent fury at ‘perfect week’ proposal

Health workers are threatening industrial action over an official plan for a “perfect week” of care as wider reforms to the embattled system are developed.

Ambulance ramping is at its worst, according to official figures, despite Labor before the next election vowing to “fix” the crisis. Picture: Supplied

Health workers are threatening industrial action amid union fury at what they condemn as an official “perfect week” of care as wider reforms to the embattled system are developed.

Leaked documents obtained by The Advertiser show SA Health is developing a 27-point plan to combat the mounting ambulance ramping and hospital crisis.

This includes holding special meetings, empowering paramedics to treat rather than sending them to hospital, sending private health insurance patients to appropriate wards, enlisting “general medicine” teams into emergency departments, and developing new discharge targets such as 50 per cent of people before midday.

A new subcommittee of senior health chiefs is also planned.

Despite Labor promising before last year’s poll to “fix the ramping crisis”, March was the worst month on record.

Ambulance ramping, such as at Flinders Medical Centre, is at record levels, figures show.

An SA Health “focus week” initiative, later this month, will “make sure our patients get the right care, in the right place, at the right time, 100 per cent of the time”, bosses have vowed.

In a note to staff, SA Health chief executive Robyn Lawrence promised it would “focus on minimising duplication and rework clinicians”.

Based on a “perfect week” in Britain’s NHS, it would, she said, provide an “optimal working environment in which to deliver patient care”, she wrote.

But Health Services Union secretary, Billy Elrick, called on the government to scrap the proposal.

He said industrial action such as boycotts and overtimes bans were being threatened from health staff including radiographers, sonographers, occupational therapists, psychologists, social workers, and cardiac physiologists.

“HSU members are outraged at SA Health’s ‘perfect week’ initiative,” he said.

“It is the wrong initiative at the wrong time.”

Authorities are working on a plan to stop hospital ramping. Picture: Ambulance Employees Association

Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation SA branch secretary Elizabeth Dabars said she was sceptical at first but has been left reassured after discussions with Southern Local Health network bosses, who control hospitals such as the Flinders Medical Centre.

She was reserving her judgment while awaiting responses from bosses who control the Central Adelaide Local Health Network and the northern areas.

“We’re extremely open to working with those health networks,” she said.

“But how do you fix years of problems and create a state of perfection in a week.”

In response to questions, Dr Lawrence promised staff “will not be asked to work additional hours”.

“It’s a week where essentially you focus on what is going on around patient flow in your hospital system – from front door to back door,” she said.

“We’ll be … reducing duplication for clinicians, cutting red tape and delaying non-essential meetings.

“I believe it will help us learn which processes are working well and how we can improve the experience of patients, safety and staff morale.”

Health Services Union SA/NT Branch Secretary Billy Elrick has warned of new industrial action over what he dubbed ‘perfect week’. Picture: Brenton Edwards

Opposition health spokeswoman Ashton Hurn said: “If ‘focus week’ delivers any meaningful improvements that could be adopted system wide then that would be useful.

“But Labor should be striving for ‘the right care’ every single day – not just one single week.”

Health Minister Chris Picton said it was proactive initiative to “help give our clinicians the bandwidth to ensure our system can run as well as possible to meet the needs of our patients”.

“What generally has happened over the past five years is the system gets stressed and then meetings get cancelled at the last minute to deal with the pressure,” he said.

“Whereas this is an attempt from SA Health to get ahead of the pressure and allow for system improvements to happen proactively, most of which have been raised by clinicians themselves.”