An audit assessing how effectively and efficiently the Northern Beaches Hospital public-private partnership delivers public hospital services has just been released. This is seperate to the inquiry still underway.
The audit, conducted by the Audit Office of NSW concludes:
“The Northern Beaches Hospital public-private partnership is not effectively delivering the best quality integrated health services and clinical outcomes to the Northern Beaches community and the State – the standard required under the arrangement and the key objective of the project deed.
The partnership is at risk of failure, with Healthscope requesting in November 2023, and again in December 2023, that the return of the public portion of the Northern Beaches Hospital be brought forward by 14 years. In its requests, Healthscope noted the risk to the viability of the Northern Beaches Hospital, citing insufficient funding, a lack of integration into the wider health network, and strained stakeholder relationships.
NSW Health effectively manages the contract with Healthscope day-to-day on behalf of the State, ensuring that public hospital activity at the Northern Beaches Hospital is provided at a lower cost than if the State operated the hospital. However, the public-private partnership structure creates tension between commercial imperatives and clinical outcomes.
The Northern Beaches Hospital has recorded concerning results for some hospital-acquired complications and has not taken sufficient actions to address some identified clinical safety risks.
The project deed, which governs the partnership, does not support the hospital’s integration into the local health district and broader health network.
This has an impact on patient journeys and access to services for patients in the Northern Beaches. Additionally, Healthscope has no obligation or commitment to implement NSW Health initiatives – such as the Safe Staffing Levels initiative.
The Northern Beaches Hospital has achieved accreditation to ensure it meets national quality standards for hospital care but some quality and safety concerns remain. “
Healthscope has already entered discussions with The NSW Government regarding returning part of the facility to public hands.
The NSW government has set up a taskforce to manage the task.
You can read the full review here
Healthscope has issued the following statement responding to the audit findings:
Healthscope acknowledges the Audit Office for its thorough and balanced review on
Northern Beaches Hospital (NBH).
The report is further confirmation that the continued operation of the public hospital component of NBH under a public private partnership model is severely challenged, and no longer compatible with the NSW Government’s policy objectives. That is why Healthscope has indicated to the Government that it is willing to engage constructively on an early handback of the public hospital, as allowed for in the project deed.
The report also confirms that NBH continues to meet or exceed national quality standards (on p. 3), often outperforms NSW public hospital peers (p. 5) and performs strongly across key clinical measures, including:
• Admitted patient emergency treatment performance (p. 16);
• Elective surgery wait time performance (p. 30); and
• Ambulance transfer times (p. 19).
In addition, Healthscope has received advice from NSW Health on 15 April that its review of the NBH Emergency Department has confirmed that it is compliant against the eight criteria considered by the review.
Healthscope has accepted most of the findings relating to NBH in the Audit Office report and is actively addressing the areas identified for improvement. Healthscope expresses its condolences to families involved with the recent instances of failure in patient care at Northern Beaches Hospital and is participating fulsomely and transparently in the independent inquiries that are examining the circumstances.
The focus of everyone at Healthscope remains on supporting patients, staff and the community.
