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Health Services Amendment Bill 2005
Health Services Amendment Bill 2005
Explanatory Notes for Amendments to be
moved during consideration in detail by The
Honourable Stephen Robertson MP
Title of the Bill
Health Services Amendment Bill 2005
Objective of the Amendments
The Health Services Amendment Bill 2005 (the Bill) is to be amended to
require an annual performance report on public hospitals to be prepared
and tabled in Parliament.
The report will measure the quality of Queensland's public hospitals across
a range of indicators, and will also publish information about elective
surgery and surgical outpatient waiting lists.
Achievement of the Objective
The objective will be achieved by amending the Health Services
Amendment Bill 2005.
Alternative Ways of Achieving Policy Objectives
The only way the objective can be achieved is by amendment to legislation.
Consistency with Fundamental Legislative Principles
The Bill is consistent with Fundamental Legislative Principles.
Consultation
The Queensland Health Systems Review Final Report (September 2005)
indicated that consultation with community and stakeholder groups
revealed that current public reporting about health system outcomes are
considered to be unsatisfactory. The public hospitals performance report
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Health Services Amendment Bill 2005
will address this issue, providing a more open and publicly accountable
health system in Queensland.
Notes on Provisions
Clause 1 amends clause 3 of the Health Services Amendment Bill 2005
(`the Bill') to insert new definitions into section 2 of the Health Services
Act 1991 (`the Act').
Clause 1 also amends the definition of the term `public sector health
service facility' so that it is defined for the entire Act, rather than for Part 7
only.
Clause 2 inserts a new Clause 9 into the Bill, which inserts a new "Part 4A
Public hospitals performance reports" into the Act (section 38A-38E).
The new section 38A of the Health Services Act 1991 defines the key terms
to be used in part 4A of the Act.
The term `prescribed public hospital' is defined as a public sector hospital
that falls within criteria prescribed by regulation, and the Mater
Misericordiae Public Hospitals. Examples of the criteria that may be
included in a regulation include budget, type and volume of services
offered and number of patients treated. This is to ensure that small and
regional hospitals that have minimal budgets and limited services are
excluded from the mandatory reporting requirements. This is consistent
with the report published in 2005 for the 2003-2004 financial year, where
75 of the state's 168 hospitals that were reported on, represented over 97%
of admitted patient activity in the State for that year.
The term `stated public hospitals' is defined as a prescribed public hospital
that uses electronic appointment scheduling systems and collects data
relating to surgery under guidelines established by the chief executive. This
enables data on elective surgery waiting lists to be collected from an
estimated 31 hospitals, representing approximately 95% of elective surgery
waiting list information in the State.
The term `elective surgery waiting list' is defined as a register kept by a
hospital that lists patients who have been assessed as needing elective
surgery from the time the hospital accepts the referral for surgery until the
surgery has been performed or the patient is sooner removed from the list.
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Health Services Amendment Bill 2005
The term `surgical outpatient waiting list' is defined as a register listing
those who require an appointment at a surgical outpatient clinic from the
time the hospital receives the referral until the initial appointment has been
attended or the patient is sooner removed from the list.
There may be a variety of circumstances resulting in a patient being
removed from either of the waiting lists; for example, the patient may
decide that he or she no longer requires the appointment or surgery, may
seek further tests or alternative treatment or move interstate.
The new section 38B of the Health Services Act 1991 requires the Chief
Executive to prepare and give the Minister an annual performance report on
public hospitals (to be called a `public hospitals performance report'), with
the first report to be given in 2006. The report must also state the period
that it covers.
The new section 38C of the Health Services Act 1991 will require the
report to provide information on the performance of each prescribed public
hospital in Queensland against the following key performance indicators:
· clinical performance of each hospital, including the quality of care
and clinical practice
· hospital efficiency, including cost of services and resource
management;
· patient satisfaction, including patients' views on the quality and
outcomes of care and treatment received; and
· system integration and change, including the use of clinical
information systems, the relationships between the hospital and the
community, the quality and safety of services and workforce
management.
Subsection (2) will also require the report to compare each hospital's
performance with other prescribed public hospitals in Queensland that are
of a similar type (for example, similar size, type and volume of services
and geographical location) and all prescribed public hospitals in
Queensland. Benchmarking the performance of hospitals in comparison to
other hospitals will help identify key target areas for improvement at both a
local and Statewide level.
The new section 38D of the Health Services Act 1991 will specify that the
public hospitals performance report must also include the following
information about stated public hospitals:
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Health Services Amendment Bill 2005
· the number of patients on elective surgery waiting lists as at a date
stated in the report;
· the number of patients on surgical outpatient waiting lists as at a date
stated in the report;
· the number of patients who received elective surgery for a period
stated in the report; and
· the number of patients that attended an appointment at a surgical
outpatient clinic for a period stated in the report.
Subsection (2) clarifies that the date mentioned in subsection (1) need not
be in, or be the same as, the period stated in the report under section
38B(2).
Section 38E clarifies that the chief executive must include information
about the Mater Misericordiae Public Hospitals in the public hospitals
performance report only to the extent that the information is available to
the chief executive.
The new section 38F of the Health Services Act 1991 provides that the
Minister will be required to table the public hospital performance report in
Parliament. This report may be included in the department's annual report
under the Financial Administration and Audit Act 1977. However, if the
report is not included in the annual report, it must be tabled in the
Parliament within 7 days of the Minister receiving it.
© State of Queensland 2005