Northern Beaches Hospital: 12 month plan to find 1000 staff and ramp up services
Since opening last year the Northern Beaches Hospital has had a horror start, but Healthscope boss Dr Victoria Atkinson is confident the ‘teething issues’ are over and her 12-month plan is now in the ‘ramp up stage’.
For the first time since the chaotic opening of Northern Beaches Hospital and the resignation of several senior staff, a Healthscope chief has revealed the company’s 12 month plan to right the ship.
Dr Victoria Atkinson, chief medical officer for Healthscope’s 43 hospitals, said they wanted to hire up to 1000 staff on top of the 1500 already in place.
The staff increase — which would make the hospital the peninsula’s top employer — would be needed to open all 488-beds in the hospital.
By the end of this month, 340 beds will be open, a 55 per cent increase since opening.
The number of beds and services have slowly been increasing over the past few months, as planned.
This month it is expected there will be 170 new babies born in the maternity wing, a 30 per cent increase on average monthly births since opening.
The Medical Centre, which provides bulk billing for all Medicare card holders, is now open seven days a week, averaging 170 visits a day.
Earlier this month they had 230 a day.
And there are now more than 530 active senior doctors, predominantly specialists, credentialed to work at the hospital, and more than 90 anaesthetists
Dr Atkinson said the 12 month plan was to see cardiac and neuro surgery available to private patients. Public patients would go to Royal North Shore Hospital.
“We are switching to ramp up stage now which is really exciting,” she said.
“We are looking to scale up and add specialist services.”
In October when they first opened, the situation was vastly different with a lack of medical supplies and staff to cope with demand.
Patients also complained about long waiting times, missing meals and staff struggling to work equipment or computers.
Following the resignation of CEO Deborah Latta and Medical Director Louise Messara, Dr Atkinson was drafted in to get the hospital back on track.
She said she was confident the hospital was over the initial “teething issues” and was now in the “ramp up stage” which would see the hospital open all wards and services in the next 12 months.
Dr Atkinson said an ambitious recruitment campaign seeking staff from as far away as the UK and Ireland had created incredible interest.
She also said Healthscope was in the final stages of appointing a new hospital CEO and CMO.
Meanwhile, she confirmed reports that the hospital had no beds available one day last week and on several other occasions.
“It happens from time to time,” she said. “There are times, it’s usually short lived and we manage it through discharging patients.
“I had heard we were full last Monday.”
Dr Atkinson said while it was a problem all hospitals faced, they had discharged patients to free up beds and on that occasion there was no need to cancel any elective surgeries.
In regards to questions over why emergency wait times were not included in the Bureau of Health Information’s quarterly report, Dr Atkinson said the data was submitted, but the bureau had chosen not to use it.
A source at BHI confirmed that if the quality of the data was not up to scratch then it could not be used.
“It was not our decision and we are confident in our performance,” Dr Atkinson said.
“The data continues to improve and I’m really happy with our performance right now.”
But, despite her confidence she refused to release the data to the Manly Daily.
Dr Atkinson also said Healthscope wanted to win over the community including campaigners who want to see Mona Vale Hospital’s acute services re-open.
She said they were keen to bring what was good about Mona Vale Hospital to the new hospital.
While they were winning over hearts and minds, there were still some in the community that needing convincing.
“Confidence is earned over time and that is something we are working towards every single day,” she said.
Developer reveals $34m northern beaches shop-top apartment plan
A strip of shops in the main street of a Sydney beachside suburb is the target of a $34m apartment proposal by one of the city’s biggest developers. Take a look.
‘It’s scary’: Speed race has SailGP guns on edge
SailGP gun Kyle Langford has given an insight into the wet, wild and high risk speed chase that could see 100km/h broken on Sydney Harbour – and the fear and pain involved.