Job and bed cuts pushed at Women’s and Children’s
Nursing jobs and beds would be axed at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, under measures proposed by an SA Health-commissioned review.
Patients should spend less time in hospital requiring fewer nurses, the review recommends.
The review by independent consultant firm Deloitte found the WCH to be 20 per cent less efficient than similar insitutions interstate.
Since the time of the review, the hospital’s administrators have acted to cut the length of patient stays and halved the use of casual nursing staff.
The State Government is now proposing to cut the number of beds by 30 and reduce staff numbers by 85.
As with its proposal to close the Modbury Hospital’s paediatric unit, the proposed cuts will be subject to a period of public consultation.
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“The review showed the WCH was 20 per cent less efficient than its national peers for inpatient costs, based on 2010-11 data,” SA Health’s Chief Executive David Swan.
“Longer patient stays in hospital which resulted in greater operating costs were the main reason identified.
“Since then, the hospital has implemented a number of strategies to improve efficiency and performance, including reducing unnecessary bed days and lowering nursing agency costs by almost half.
“However, we are continuously looking at improving how we provide health care to the community and move towards national expectations and this review suggests a range of strategies to assist with that.”
The review proposes reducing the length of stay for patients, reducing 30 beds, and reducing staff numbers by 85 full-time equivalents by 2015-16.
“If the recommendations were adopted, there would be no forced redundancies, with staff reductions largely met as a result of natural attrition, by not replacing some positions as people leave/retire and using fewer agency/temporary staff and reducing bed numbers and length of stay for patients who are clinically ready to go home.
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“The proposed changes and efficiencies, if implemented, would mean the hospital would not require the same number of beds to still provide the same level of service.
“This would be assisted by making sure that we don’t keep patients in hospital longer than necessary, so that they can go home sooner, when it is clinically appropriate.
“Advances in medicine and technology mean that patients need to stay in hospital for less time, which in turn would allow those beds to be used more efficiently.”
If all the efficiency measures in the review were adopted, the WCH could expect to save a total of $19.2 million by 2015-16.
In addition, the hospital has also identified a further $7.27 million of savings as part of existing savings strategies.
The Deloitte findings appear to contradict the Women’s and Children’s most recent annual report which listed its length of stay efficiency rates as one of the highlights of the year.
“I am particularly proud to report that the Relative Stay Index target was achieved following the highest level monitoring and wide ranging strategies for addressing length of stay,” WCH chief executive Gail Mondy said in the 2011-12 annual report.
Relative Stay Index is an international measure of efficiency that balances actual length of stay with that expected and is regarded as a key indicator of hospital efficiency.
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