| 14 July 2006
Nurses call for greater accountability and transparency in private hospitals
The Queensland Nurses Union’s (QNU) annual conference has unanimously called on the Queensland Government to ensure all data collected on patient outcomes and service quality in the private hospital sector is publicly released.
The resolution passed by the conference is:
That the QNU strenuously lobby Queensland Health to ensure that data being collected through the Queensland Health Quality Hospital Outcomes reporting on comparative clinical outcomes in both public and private hospitals be made available to the public. This is required to ensure that a consistent standard and accountability is applied to both private and public hospitals regarding clinical outcomes so that the reputation of the public hospital system is not undermined through one-sided reporting.
QNU secretary, Gay Hawksworth, said conference decided to address this issue after an address by the head of the Queensland Health Reform Team, Dr Stephen Duckett, in which Dr Duckett referred to private hospitals possibly using commercial-in-confidence arguments to avoid the release of the said data.
“To let private hospitals get away with that would be wrong and deprive the community of vital information necessary to make informed choices about health care,” Ms Hawksworth said.
“It would also be a serious injustice and double standard, as public hospitals continue to be extensively scrutinised. Nurses are concerned that such a one-sided process creates a false impression in the community of the two systems and that private interests can commercially exploit public scrutiny of the public hospital system.
“During the recent Davies Inquiry into Queensland public hospitals we even had one major Brisbane private hospital running advertisements trying to exploit damaging revelations about some adverse incidents in public hospitals. The unfortunate fact of life is, adverse incidents happen in all hospitals – public and private. Regrettably they are a product of any human system. The challenge is to acknowledge the fact and develop systems that minimise the harm arising from such events.
“For that to happen private hospitals must be subjected to the same level of scrutiny and analysis, including media scrutiny if that is necessary for increased public awareness, as public hospitals. They cannot be allowed to hide behind spurious business concepts such as commercial-in-confidence. That is as bad as governments using cabinet secrecy arguments to suppress information on patient safety and service outcomes.
“The Queensland Government is now developing a culture of openness in Queensland Health. It must ensure, through legislation if necessary, that the private hospital sector does the same.
“Otherwise the undermining of public confidence in the public hospital system will continue, while the private sector laughs all the way to bank. As strong supporters of the Medicare principles of universal, free access to high-quality hospital services, the QNU is not prepared to sit quietly by and let that happen,” Ms Hawksworth said.
The QNU’s 25th annual conference is being held this week – 12, 13 and 14 July 2006 - at the Carlton Crest Hotel, Brisbane.
More than 200 delegates, representing 33,000 nurses from hospitals, community health facilities and aged care facilities throughout Queensland, are discussing a range of industrial relations, health and political issues. Considerable time is being spent discussing the impact of the Howard Government’s attack on people’s rights at work. In the wake of the Davies Inquiry into Queensland public hospitals, patient safety issues such as the one outlined in this press release are also being discussed.
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