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- 15 November 2006
Clinical Service Plans
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Page: 3878
The Hon. JENNIFER GARDINER [11.50 a.m.]: I move:
That under Standing Order 52 there be laid upon the table of the House within 14 days of the date of the passing of this resolution the clinical service plans, including draft plans, created since June 2005 for each area health service, hospitals within those regions, and the Children's Hospital at Westmead, in the possession, custody or control of the Minister for Health or NSW Health, and any document which records or refers to the production of documents as a result of this order of the House.
It is very important that the clinical service plans for each of the area health services in New South Wales and the Children's Hospital at Westmead be provided before the Parliament goes into recess for the year. This is in keeping with the principles of accountability and free flow of information about health services that, for example, were referred to in the major report by Mr John Menadue and his health council to a former Minister for Health, the Hon. Craig Knowles. I wish to briefly deal with a couple of items referred to in the Menadue report on NSW Health. Under the heading "Values and Principles" the Menadue report informed the Government, which lauded his report:
We believe that consumers of health care have a right to information and choice about the services and treatments available to them.
The concept of community involvement in health services is also very important. The Menadue report to the Government said:
Communities must be involved in decisions about the way health care is delivered and about the types and location of health services. Given the changes taking place to the way health care is provided, this involvement is vital.
Indeed, Mr Menadue and his team recommended that the performance agreement of each area health service chief executive officer should include expectations about levels of consumer and community participation, and that area health services should make their planning and budgeting processes and timetables clear to each community. That is what this motion is about. It is about letting communities know what is planned for their hospital regarding future clinical services. It is a fundamental set of documents for each community. Each community should have the right to know and be able to contribute to debate on the clinical services that will be rolled out in the future. It is about as fundamental as one can get in delivering health services in this State. I commend to the House, without delaying it unduly, that this is a very simple matter and that the information should be provided to the Parliament and the people of this State.
The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS (Minister for Health) [11.53 a.m.]: The Government opposes the call for papers. Each area health service produces a range of clinical service plans as part of its continuous planning processes. The plans outline future directions and strategies for a specific clinical service. As well, each area health service and the Children's Hospital at Westmead are preparing area health care services plans. These plans are strategic documents identifying the overall directions for the area for the forthcoming five-year period. The final documents will be released after the release of the State Health Plan.
The area health care services plans are currently being drafted following consultation with relevant health practitioners, the area health advisory councils and the community. Area health care services plans will be public documents when they are finalised. The order for papers would require an enormous amount of work to be undertaken by the Department of Health. It would involve locating every draft of every clinical service plan for every type of service for each of the area health services. This is an unjustifiable deployment of resources; it should be directed towards the planning and delivery of health care services to the people of New South Wales.
I must also signal to the House that some of these documents have been prepared to take to Cabinet, and at this point that Cabinet process has not taken place. I have already said to some members of the House, and I now reiterate publicly, that I am willing to provide a briefing on the progress of the development of the area health care services. This would provide the information members seek without requiring this massive deployment of resources.
The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS [11.54 a.m.]: I refer to the New Zealand experience in relation to the production of documents. That country has an official information Act whereby all government documents, except those for which privacy is specifically requested, are made available. The New Zealand system has been in place since 1985, and the legislation was reviewed 13 years later and found to have worked quite successfully. The doomsayers said that such a system is appalling, that it could not be done, and that it would be hugely expensive. With regard to the New South Wales Government, its secrecy is what is hugely expensive. The Government is spending a fortune in the Administrative Decisions Tribunal—which is supposed to be the people's forum for getting redress cheaply—trying to stop government information being made available. I believe that amounts to a shocking abuse of taxpayers' funds, as well as a denial of people's right to know.
In this case, documents that are involved in health strategy planning are called for. We have an election coming up and we now have a proposition to look at what health services will be delivered. I accept that some services may have to be rationalised, that some hospitals may not be able to offer all services, and that that has been the case for a long time. However, people have a right to know what health services will be provided, and they have a right to discuss that in the lead-up to the election. The Government has raised the issue of cost. I believe that is a complete furphy. Providing information to the public is an obligation of government. The Government has suggested that it would need to spend thousands of dollars to get these plans together to have them made available. If the system is such that the documents cannot be identified and provided, surely we need a better document management system. I have made a considerable number of speeches on this subject and also asked questions.
It was also suggested that these documents were part of the Cabinet process. In my view the Government is simply saying, "This is for important people like us to talk about, and you cannot know about it." In my view this Cabinet document caper is simply an escape clause to eschew an honest, democratic process. The Cabinet is our servant; it is not our master. It is time the Government understood that. This is a right to know issue, and I believe it is important in the lead-up to the election. The motion must be supported.
Reverend the Hon. FRED NILE [11.57 a.m.]: I asked a question about the wording of the motion of the Hon. Jennifer Gardiner with regard to the call for papers. The motion reads in part:
That, under Standing Order 52, there be laid upon the table of the House within 14 days of the date of passing of this resolution the clinical service plans, including draft plans …
I understand that creates a problem. As we all know, when drafts are produced there may be multiple drafts. For example, a draft produced in June 2005 may be redrafted in September 2005, and so on. Those later drafts may have no relevance whatsoever to the final clinical service plans, which is what the Opposition seeks to have tabled in this House. The Opposition's call for papers seems to be reasonable, assuming that the clinical service plans are a final document. However, I understand that some of the final clinical service plans are not yet available. I understand that even the copies the Minister has may not have any validity until the Government adopts them.
They are still plans that have to go through the normal process of government, through the Cabinet and so on. At this stage they are simply documents in the hands of the Minister, and to that extent they are proposals that may or may not be endorsed by the Cabinet. There may be problems in the clinical service plan because I understand there is currently debate on, for example, Sutherland hospital and St George Hospital as to what services should be provided in those hospitals, what services should be transferred to another hospital, what operations can be performed in various hospitals, and so on.
We are all very concerned about waiting lists and want maximum efficiency in the public hospital system so that everyone can get adequate medical treatment, irrespective of their age or where they live in the State. My other concern, as has also been raised by the Minister, is that we do not have too many motions requiring documents to be tabled by the health department and this may be a diversion from their priority role.
Pursuant to sessional orders business interrupted.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
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