Health dividends Deliver for local communities

Health Minister Lawrence Springborg today used the Health Estimates Committee hearing in Parliament to praise Hospital and Health Boards across Queensland. 

Health services are starting the new financial year in a much better financial position, balancing their budgets for the first time in years or deliver substantial community dividends that will be reinvested in local health services.

Mr Springborg said better management, combined with local leadership and decision-making responsibilities, meant frontline health services had been boosted by up to $100 million.

“Health Boards have been making savings across the health services and these savings are going directly back into the local area,” Mr Springborg said.

“Savings are being used to cut long surgical waiting lists or invested in other front line projects, proving the Hospital and Health Boards are making a difference.”

From the new PET scanner in Cairns to an extra $3 million in elective surgery at Toowoomba Hospital, Mr Springborg said due diligence from strategic board decisions was making a difference to local communities.

“What we are seeing is community dividends from good, local management,” he said.

Other communities to reap rewards included West Moreton Hospital and Health Service, delivering a $2.4 million community dividend earmarked for long-wait elective surgery patients and general hospital maintenance.

Patients in the Townsville and Hospital and Health Service will have access to more surgeries and outpatient appointments after the service achieved a $7 million community dividend.

That dividend will be spent on reducing waiting lists for elective surgery, outpatient appointments and time spent in the emergency department waiting for an inpatient bed.

Rural Queenslanders will also benefit, with the South West HHS expecting a dividend of between $2 million and $3 million, which will go towards establishing a new seven-bed sub-acute care unit at Roma Hospital, as well as recruit new nursing staff.

“These are just some examples of how Hospital Boards can really deliver for Queensland communities through greater autonomy and flexibility in decision making,” Mr Springborg said.

Mr Springborg said local control had also vastly improved hospital emergency department performance.

“The number of ED patients now being processed within four hours is up to 75 per cent, an increase of more than ten per cent in a year,” he said.

“Queensland Health has long been plagued by inefficiencies and unnecessary bureaucracy and we are cutting through that, turning the corner and now delivering results.”

[ENDS] 24 July 2013

Media contact: Clare Mildren 0417 255 284