Northern Beaches Hospital inquiry: Healthscope fined every month until October for not meeting KPIs
A senior executive has revealed to a public inquiry that the new privately-operated Northern Beaches Hospital had failed its performance targets every month since opening, until October.
Manly
Don't miss out on the headlines from Manly. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A Northern Beaches Hospital executive told a public inquiry it had been fined by NSW Health for not meeting its performance targets every month since it opened, until October.
Andrew Spillane, Finance Director for the hospital’s private operator Healthscope, told the parliamentary inquiry there was a schedule of KPI abatements – “or fines for a better word” – that “applied from the day we opened the hospital”.
“So we were not meeting, for example, our emergency treatment performance KPI in the first opening months of the hospital and we have finally only managed to now achieve it in the month of October, 12 months after opening.”
The inquiry asked the hospital executives who attended – including new CEO Andrew Newton, Stephen Gameron, Healthscope’s state manager and Andy Ratchford, Director of Emergency – to submit more details of the fines within 21 days.
The inquiry is looking into the management and operation of the hospital.
Deborah Willcox, chief executive of Northern Sydney Local Health District, who later gave evidence at the hearing on Tuesday said the hospital had imposed abatements on itself for patients staying in ED for 24 hours, for hospital acquired infections and for failing to deal with complaints within 35 days.
Ms Willcox said early on there was a “small increase slightly above the acceptable target” of the infection “staph” – staphylococcus – which can occur in very sick patients who are on central lines and are at risk of such things.
Susan Pearce, Deputy Secretary Patient Experience and System Performance, NSW Ministry of Health, also pointed out that the hospital’s KPIs were set higher than other hospitals.
Mr Newton admitted there were problems within the hospital that had still not been resolved 12 months on, but there was a positive culture and that the turnover of staff was very low at 1.1 per cent.
Mr Ratchford also said internal figures showed that the Emergency Department had met its KPIs in all five categories in October.
Mr Gameren said on reflection that they could have worked out the IT and linkages to the public health services in a “less live environment” and that a “staged opening of the hospital over a longer period of time” may have worked better.
He also answered whether Northern Beaches Hospital was a public hospital, by saying it was a private hospital that contracted public services.
“It is a private hospital,” Mr Gameren said. “We are designated a private hospital which sees public patients under contract.”