More doctors and nurses for emergency departments
Julia Gillard,Nicola Roxon
posted Monday, 26 July 2010
A Gillard Labor Government will invest in a comprehensive package to boost Australia’s emergency department workforce, so that hospitals have the frontline staff to deliver more services and reduce waiting times.
This investment will train more doctors, nurses and support staff as well as support GPs and other doctors to receive training in emergency medicine.
This investment will help ensure that parents with a sick child will spend less time waiting for a doctor or nurse to become available when they visit an Emergency Department.
Our most sick and elderly will also find more doctors and nurses available when they need immediate support in an Emergency Department.
Earlier this year, the Government secured a historic agreement to roll out a tough new national standard to ensure that Australians visiting emergency departments will be seen and treated within four hours.
Nearly a third of patients admitted into hospital from an Emergency Department – about 600,000 Australians – wait longer than 8 hours between the time they arrive and when they are transferred to a hospital bed in a ward.
This investment today will provide Emergency Departments with additional staff to ensure they meet this four hour target.
More emergency doctors, nurses and support staff
Starting from 1 January 2011, the Government will provide training places for an additional 27 specialist emergency doctors a year.
This will support training for up to 270 more specialist emergency doctors over the next decade – a major boost to the 800 specialists working in emergency medicine today.
At the same time, the Government will support 300 additional scholarships a year to train more emergency nurses and nurse practitioners.
This will support up to 2,000 more specialist emergency nurses over the next decade, including up to 600 more specialist emergency nurses over the next three years.
The Government will also support 100 student nurses a year to gain experience in emergency departments as part of their education.
So that emergency doctors and nurses can be freed up to focus on those parts of their job that draw on their clinical skills, 100 scholarships a year will be provided to improve the skills of support staff in emergency departments.
More support for accident and emergency services across the country
Many of Australia’s outer suburban, regional and rural hospitals do not have dedicated emergency departments, but provide accident and emergency services supported by local GPs or other doctors who provide services on call.
To ensure that all Australians can benefit from better services, the Government will also support up to 20 new Emergency Medicine Education Officers in outer metropolitan and regional hospitals.
These Officers will be responsible for up-skilling local GPs and other doctors with critical skills in emergency medicine, according to a course developed by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine.
Funding of $96 million for these initiatives is provisioned for in the 2010-11 Budget.
Building on a strong track record
These investments build on the Gillard Labor Government’s strong track record in health and hospitals, which has seen:
- Hospitals funding increased by 50 per cent, including $1.5 billion specifically to expand services and reduce waiting times in emergency departments.
- Record investments in training more doctors and nurses – including doubling the number of GP training places to 1,200 a year and funding 1,000 new nurses every year.
- 1,300 new sub-acute beds in hospitals across the country – to help take pressure off hospitals and their Emergency Departments.
The Gillard Labor Government is also taking pressure off Emergency Departments by improving after-hours care – through establishing a 24 hour helpline that can link Australians to a GP at any time of the day or night, to commence from July 2011.
For more than a decade, Australians have suffered as Emergency Departments struggle to cope with two million extra presentations and less support from the former Coalition Government.
As a former Health Minister, Tony Abbott saw $1 billion cut from Australia’s public hospitals and contributed to the doctor shortage by capping GP training places.
Mr Abbott has made clear he will make more cuts to health and hospitals if elected.
In stark contrast, a Gillard Labor Government will move Australia forwards with record investment and the most significant reforms to the health and hospitals system since the introduction of Medicare.
For more information on this policy click here.
Tags: and, Gillard, Government, Health, Hospitals, National, Network