08 December 2004

Additional 200 beds to be opened for public hospitals

The new beds are in addition to the 563 extra public hospital permanent beds announced as part of the Sustainable Access Plan in June.

“This $186 million comes on top of the NSW Government’s record $10 billion health budget announced for 2004/05,” Mr Carr said.

“Today’s announcement will help ensure families are able to get better access to a public hospital bed for their sick young child or elderly parents.

“To meet the challenge of Sydney’s booming population -- about 1000 people a week – and the ageing of our community, the State Government has decided to open up an extra 200 public hospital beds.

“Bed occupancy in NSW hospitals is continuing to rise because admissions to hospital wards through the emergency department continues to increase - up by 1.6% in October.

“Those who are admitted are sicker and are staying longer, that means we need to expand our bed base by bringing more beds online to cope with increasing pressure on the health system.

“We started the process of opening up extra public hospital beds earlier this year with 563 additional permanent beds.”

The Minister for Health, Mr Morris Iemma, said the funding was part of the Government’s long term plan to improve hospital access for families by bucking international trends and opening up public hospital beds.

“The Government is building up our medical infrastructure,” Mr Iemma said.

The additional 200 beds will be funded to allow Area Health Services to permanently retain beds that were opened for winter 2004.

Other initiatives were also starting to deliver results.

The Minister said the Hospital Improvement Teams currently working in nine metropolitan public hospitals were helping clinical staff develop solutions to patient flow problems.

October statistics record access block in hospitals at 31 per cent in October, a five percentage point improvement on September, while year to date access block is at 35 per cent.

Public hospitals have continued to record improving code red performance with the latest hospital data showing that code red hours in October fell by 2,391 hours compared to September, Health Minister Morris Iemma said today.

“That’s a further 33 per cent reduction on the September figures and means the number of hours spent on code red have more than halved since the August peak,” Mr Iemma said.

“Clinical staff have been working hard to improve hospital performance and I applaud the work they’ve done which has seen across the board improvements in code red performance,” the minister said.

In October, metropolitan hospitals spent 4,687 hours on code red compared to 7,078 hours in September and down from 10,059 in August.

The Minister said Area Health Services were already working on developing their winter strategies for 2005 to ensure hospitals have undertaking adequate workforce planning.

For a range of health information, go online to www.health.nsw.gov.au