SA Health plan to contract elective surgery to private hospitals
SA Health will contract private hospitals to do public elective surgery in a four-year move to slash waiting times and ease ambulance ramping.
Public patients will have elective surgery in private hospitals in a bid to cut queues and ease ambulance ramping.
A multimillion-dollar contract that Health Minister Stephen Wade calls “revolutionary” and SA Health chief executive Dr Chris McGowan hailed as cutting “red tape” will see SA Health commission 13 private hospital groups to do public elective work for four years — at lower rates than now incurred at the $2.4 billion Royal Adelaide Hospital — to fast-track the work.
As well as cutting elective surgery queues, the move aims to free up ward beds, in turn easing pressure on emergency departments.
As of Monday there were 17,462 people on the public hospital elective surgery waiting list, including 615 listed as overdue.
The deal aims to ease ramping where ambulances arrive but there are no room for patients in the ED due to patients who have been treated being “warehoused” — sometimes for more than 24 hours — while waiting for a ward bed.
The four-year contract will give SA Health flexibility to “dial up” the use of private hospitals in times of peak demand, Dr McGowan told The Advertiser.
While not guaranteeing an end to ambulance ramping, Dr McGowan said using available resources in the most efficient way would ease pressure on the public system.
He said the cost would be lower than the national efficient benchmark — which the RAH’s failure to meet helped trigger the decision to have consultants KordaMentha overhaul the system which was headed towards a $300 million annual budget blowout.
The move to contract out the work will reignite Labor claims that the Liberals are privatising public work.
Opposition Health Spokesman Chris Picton said Premier Steven Marshall was privatising public hospital services at the same time corporate liquidators were cutting 170 beds.
“This will be the biggest privatisation of public hospital beds since the Liberals privatised Modbury Hospital in the 1990s,” he said.
“It is telling that the Government won’t reveal the cost to taxpayers of their secret deal to privatise public hospital services.”
SA Health will manage a new Patient Services Panel which will oversee the agreement to allow public patients to access services they need earlier at private facilities.
Full details of the overall cost have not been released due to commercial considerations, while the number of patients likely to be treated will hinge on demand including during emergencies.
The move comes as SA Health prepares to open four Priority Care Centres manned by GPs and nurses as an alternative for ambulances taking patients with low urgency problems to busy EDs - they were due to open in June but have been repeatedly delayed.
Minister Wade described the private hospitals deal as a “landmark agreement” to revolutionise the management of hospital demand.
“Public and private hospitals have always worked together, however this has traditionally been done on an ad hoc, non-strategic basis,” he said.
“This new agreement allows for better planning and a more streamlined co-ordination of services to minimise delays for surgery.
“The 13 private providers include day and overnight hospitals which will primarily assist with providing hospital services such as elective surgery and rehabilitation, but also support during emergencies or major incidents.
“We are better co-ordinating and better using South Australia’s health services to ease pressure on our hospitals and better support the health and wellbeing of all South Australians.”
Dr McGowan said the agreement will provide a more efficient approach to managing waiting times for surgery, peak demand periods, and assistance in the event of a major incident.
“This agreement is part of our ambitious, long term reforms that broaden the way the health system operates in South Australia,” Dr McGowan said.
“With this multimillion-dollar agreement in place, we will be able to provide a better service for our patients while reducing red tape for our local health networks and help them better manage demand.
“It will also ensure we have a clear understanding of what services the private system can provide and how many patients they can care for. We anticipate co-operation will result in a reduction in elective surgery wait times and access to more timely care.”
The agreement is for an initial period of four years, with the option for a further four, pending the success of the first phase.
Approved providers are:
- Adelaide Community Healthcare Alliance (Ashford, Memorial and Flinders Private hospitals)
- Adelaide Day Surgery
- Calvary Health Care Adelaide
- Glenelg Community Hospital
- Integrated Clinical Oncology Network
- McLaren Vale & District War Memorial Hospital
- North Eastern Community Hospital
- Parkwynd Private Hospital and Griffith Rehabilitation Hospital
- SPORTSMED SA Hospital
- St Andrew’s Hospital
- Tennyson Centre Day Hospital
- Vista Day Surgery
- Western Hospital