D-Day for crucial hospital support package

A SUPPORT package for the Royal Hobart Hospital will be unveiled today, as a newly released report lays bare staff attitudes about the state of the hospital.

Health Minister Michael Ferguson will announce the next stage of the Government’s Patients First plan for the RHH, but it is not known what form the extra support will take.

In April last year, the State Government announced the Patients First plan to tackle the crisis in Tasmania’s emergency departments.

The $5.4 million plan included five immediate measures plus a list of “unacceptable events” for the frontline care provided in emergency, which were to act as red flags for the hospital leadership to take immediate action.

In August, interstate experts, doctors Andrew Staib, Clair Sullivan and Jo Timms, were invited by the Government to talk to hospital staff about patient access at the emergency departments at the RHH and the Launceston General Hospital.

“We also commissioned an expert report to look into the legacy issues involved because we genuinely want to fix Tasmania’s health system,” Mr Ferguson said. “Along with consultation with doctors, nurses and allied health professionals, this report has helped to inform the next stage of our Patient’s First initiative.”

Six months later, the report has been released under Right to Information and includes comments from staff and 15 recommendations from the experts, including having data available to all staff to allow for timely care of patients and ensuring “escalation policies are implemented in a timely manner in order to pre-empt access block”.

Comments from an RHH emergency department physician included in the report said the department was too small and there were not enough inpatient beds within the hospital to deal with periodic surges of patients.

“The culture of secrecy, data hoarding and fear of the Mercury needs to stop,” the comments read. “Let everyone see the pressure we are under.

“There is no daily circulation of accurate data on occupancy [or] performance by national benchmarks — we seem to find out well after the fact, if at all.

“We need a bit more transparency so all senior staff can see where we are at as an organisation on a daily basis.”