22 February 2008

Response to Royal North Shore Hospital Inquiry

NSW Minister for Health, Reba Meagher, said the NSW Government response to the Joint Select Committee Inquiry into Royal North Shore Hospital highlights significant improvements at the hospital in the four months since the Inquiry was established.

Ms Meagher said the Iemma Government was committed to make making the changes needed to improve the performance of Royal North Shore Hospital.

"We have already seen significant improvements in the performance of Royal North Shore Hospital, and the performance is getting better every week.

"I am confident that the new culture and working environment fostered by Northern Sydney Central Coast Area health Service Chief Executive Matthew Daly is making a real difference to staff morale and to patient care."

Key improvements at Royal North Shore Hospital include:

• Recruitment of an additional 97 full-time nurses since October 2007
• Appointment of a second Triage nurse within the hospital's Emergency Department
• Funding for an additional 12 hospital beds as part of a $30 million state-wide package providing an extra 150 beds across NSW
• Development of a daily bed assessment register to monitor bed availability and provide better access for admitted patients
• Implementation of all recommendations from the Dalton/ Meppem review into bullying and harassment
• Establishment of a Professional Practice Unit
• Establishment of a Clinical Reference Group to ensure high-level input from senior doctors in the management of the hospital.

Ms Meagher said these changes had resulted in improvements in the delivery of patient care at Royal North Shore Hospital.

"There has been a significant reduction in the number of patients waiting longer than benchmark time for their elective surgery, and by the end of this month Royal North Shore Hospital expects to have zero patients waiting longer than 12 months for non-urgent elective surgery.

"Figures for January showed significant improvement in the hospital's emergency department performance: treatment for patients in triage category 3 (89.1 per cent) and triage category 4 (90.6 per cent) were well above national benchmark. Overall emergency access performance was 75.4 per cent, just below the 80 per cent benchmark."

"The NSW Government has accepted 43 of the 45 recommendations made in the Committee's Report and our response details the significant action that has already been taken to implement those recommendations," Ms Meagher said.

The two recommendations from the Inquiry not supported by the Government included:

• Recommendation 1, which is not supported as the NSW Government has already established the Special Commission of Inquiry into the NSW healthy system; and
• Recommendation 11, which is noted and will be referred to the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine for expert consideration.

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