The Hodgman Liberal Government is fixing Tasmania’s broken health system as well as improving accountability and transparency across a range of key health system indicators.

We are changing the way our health and human services system operates so we can get better results for all Tasmanians.

Today I can announce we are introducing a new Health System Dashboard, to replace Your Health Progress Chart, to make it easier for Tasmanians to access timely information about the public health system.

The Health System Dashboard will inform the public and the health sector on a range of information on hospital services, ambulances, mental health, breast screening and oral health.

The more we can inform Tasmanians and the health sector, the higher the standard of decision-making will be and the better our health system will function.

The Health System Dashboard features a more detailed presentation of data with most indicators now shown on a monthly basis, rather than quarterly.

Initially, the data that sits behind the dashboard will be updated quarterly, but we are working to update some indicators more often.

The Dashboard retains the indicators from the Your Health Progress Chart, and we are now publishing an additional indicator – hospital initiated postponements of elective surgery. This is the first ever time that this measure has been routinely published and will build further accountability.

As we have previously detailed, there was a fall in elective surgery cancellations in Tasmania in 2014-15, but they remain unacceptably high.

Driving the number of cancellations down further is a key focus of our health reforms, including the Dedicated Elective Surgery Centre at the Mersey Hospital.

The Dashboard also continues publishing the outpatient waiting list, which the Greens and Labor shamefully hid from public view whilst in Government.

The Health System Dashboard marks the first step in making more information publicly available online.

The Progress Chart for Human Services is also published online today and in future data will also be transferred to a dashboard system for timely and easier public access. This Chart again shows a range of data in relation to the government’s delivery of public housing, child protection and disability services and demonstrates that while this Government has achieved improvements in the lives of many vulnerable Tasmanians, there is still work to be done.

The successful trial of the NDIS, the recent launch of the Affordable Housing Strategy and the significant “bottom-up” redesign of the child protection system are just three examples of this Government’s commitment to provide better outcomes for Tasmania’s most vulnerable, including people living with disability, children, young people and their families and carers.

Key indicators released on the dashboard today show:

• Indicators collectively reflect an increase in the number of elective surgeries targeting over boundary and long wait during 2014–15. An additional 2,266 long wait patients were treated through the Tasmanian Government’s Rebuilding Health Services program and the Australian Government’s Tasmanian Health Assistance Package.

• The increase in admissions has been accompanied by a reduction in the waiting list (both the number waiting and the average overdue days).

• There has been a corresponding increase in the average median wait time on admission which is consistent with the Tasmanian Government’s policy of ensuring that the longest waiting patients are now treated. Many patients had waited so long for surgery that, once treated, their waiting times were large enough to skew the median wait time upwards. Clearing the longest waiting backlog can only be achieved by accepting a temporary increase in median wait times.

• Oral health indicators show a decrease in the numbers of adults waiting for general care (from 14 608 in July 2014 to 9 246 in June 2015) and dentures (from 963 in July 2014 to 819 in June 2015). This results from increased activity funded by the Australian Government under the National Partnership Agreement on Adult Dental Care and an audit of the waiting lists.

The Health System Dashboard can be viewed on the HealthStats website at: http://www.healthstats.dhhs.tas.gov.au/
Michael Ferguson, Minister for Health