The Rudd Government will set a new National Four Hour Target for emergency department access in public hospitals under its new National Health and Hospitals Network.
To help public hospitals reach the new Four Hour Target, the Government will invest $500 million, the equivalent of an additional 1.2 million emergency department services.
Financial incentives will be attached to these targets - where a state's public hospitals meet or beat the target, hospitals in that state will be eligible for additional health funding.
Under the new Four Hour Target, public hospitals will be expected to ensure that patients who present to an emergency department are within four hours either:
- admitted to hospital;
- referred for follow-up treatment; or
- treated and discharged.
This new target and the funding to deliver it are contingent upon establishment of the new National Health and Hospitals Network.
The most recent figures show that currently:
- Almost one in three patients - about 600,000 people each year - wait longer than 8 hours in an emergency department before they are admitted to hospital.
- Almost one in three patients wait longer than clinically recommended.
Hard-working doctors and nurses in our emergency departments do a great job, but they need more support to deliver working families the timely services they need.
For more than a decade, Australians have suffered as public hospital emergency departments struggled to cope with two million extra presentations and reduced funding from the former Government.
In 2007/08, our emergency departments delivered 7.1 million services to patients, but only two-thirds of patients were seen within clinically recommended times.
The Government will provide $150 million from 1 July this year in upfront payments to help states and territories with the costs of moving towards the Four Hour Target.
This investment will help provide the additional capacity, equipment and planning in hospitals needed to deliver improvements in emergency departments and lift hospitals to the new high standards required under the National Health and Hospitals Network.
A further $350 million will be available in reward funding for meeting or beating the target.
This investment will mean families can be confident that when they or a loved one need urgent care in an emergency department, they will no longer have to spend all night sitting in the waiting room or waiting for a bed.
The Four Hour Target will be phased in over 4 years, beginning in 2011 with patients in the most urgent categories of clinical need, so that Local Hospital Networks can progressively adapt to the new target.
The Government will work with clinicians to develop a nationally consistent, clinically safe and appropriate definition of the Four Hour Access Target.
Local Hospital Networks will be responsible for ensuring that hospitals within their Network deliver on the Four Hour Target.
The target will not overrule the best clinical judgement of doctors - including on decisions as to whether the best treatment is to admit a patient within four hours.
Today's announcement builds on the Rudd Government's earlier $750 million injection to improve emergency department capacity, through which 37 of our public hospitals are receiving upgrades, and the Government's record $64 billion investment in health and hospitals under the National Healthcare Agreement.
This initiative further builds on the Government's National Health and Hospitals Network reform plan, and our commitment to permanently fund 60 per cent of public hospital costs, 60 per cent of capital projects and 60 per cent of the teaching and research in our public hospitals.
It also complements our investments in GP Super Clinics and growing the GP workforce to ensure more people can get access to care closer to home, rather than having to rely on emergency departments for less serious conditions.
Today's announcement underlines the Government's commitment to lifting national standards through the establishment of the National Health and Hospitals Network, and improving access and timely care for all Australians in emergency departments and in public hospitals across Australia.