New Panel to Advise on Public Hospital Access Targets
A Gillard Government commitment that people will receive the highest standards of service in their public hospitals was confirmed today with the announcement of an expert panel that will oversee how this reform is achieved.
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10 May 2011
A Gillard Government commitment that people will receive the highest standards of service in their public hospitals was confirmed today with the announcement of an expert panel that will oversee how this reform is achieved.
The panel will review the mechanisms through which elective surgery targets, the National Access Guarantee, and emergency department targets under National Health Reform are to be implemented and applied, having regard to clinical safety issues and practical impediments.
The membership of the Panel has been agreed by the Australian, state and territory governments and it will provide its first report to COAG by 30 June 2011.
Through national health reform, the Gillard Government is providing $1.5 billion to improve emergency department care and $1.4 billion to improve elective surgery care.
As part of these reforms, the states and territories have committed to moving towards new access targets including:
- a 95 per cent target for all urgency categories of elective surgery to be completed within clinically recommended times
a National Access Guarantee for elective surgery
a four-hour National Access Target in emergency departments nationwide.
The expert panel will be headed by the Commonwealth Acting Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Baggoley.
Professor Baggoley is an experienced clinician who has worked across jurisdictions in high-profile advisory roles. He has devoted much of his career to emergency medicine, becoming Professor of Emergency Medicine at Adelaide University in 2003. He is a previous national President of the Australian College of Emergency Medicine.
In 2005 Professor Baggoley was appointed Executive Director of Public Health and Clinical Coordination and Chief Medical Officer in the Department of Health in South Australia. He currently holds positions of Adjunct Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Adelaide and Professor, School of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Flinders University. In 2007 Professor Baggoley was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care.
Other members of the Expert Panel are as follows:
- Dr Mark Monaghan is an emergency department physician at Freemantle Hospital and has been the Clinical Lead in the implementation of the Four Hour Rule there.
Professor Michael Grigg is a member of the Victorian Quality Council and the Council Executive of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He is Chair of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Professional Standards and Professional Development Board and Past President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Vascular Surgery.
Dr Heather Wellington is a former member of the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. She has wide health system experience as a medical practitioner, hospital administrator, lawyer and specialist health adviser.
Julie Hartley-Jones CBE is the Chief Executive of Cairns and Hinterland Health Service District and was previously Head of Nursing and Midwifery at the Northern Sydney Central Coast Area Health Service in NSW. Ms Hartley-Jones is also the former Chief Nurse of the Oxford Redcliff Hospitals in the United Kingdom, her time there coinciding with the introduction of the National Health Service’s Four Hour Rule in emergency departments.
Associate Professor Brian Owler is a neurosurgeon based at Westmead Hospital and is Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Sydney. Apart from active clinical research, he is responsible for the direction of basic science research in the Kids Neurosurgical Research Laboratory at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead. He is also the surgeon representative on the Australian Medical Association’s NSW Branch Council.
For media inquiries, please contact the Minister's Office on 02 6277 7220
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