President’s Update: Bad report card for SA hospitals
In his latest President’s Update Dr John Williams provides an update on the AMA’s Public Hospital Report Card, SA Health’s Winter Demand Plan and his recent meeting with Health Minister Chris Picton.
Since my last President’s Update, the AMA released our 2025 Public Hospital Report Card. The findings confirm that South Australia’s hospitals are performing well below national standards. Patients are waiting too long for emergency care and planned essential surgery. The logjam is getting worse, not better.
First, some context. The report analysed data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) during the 2023-24 financial year - the most recent available data. For consistency, the performance of each jurisdiction was measured against the same metrics.
Now, the findings. The report indicates this state’s emergency departments (EDs) are performing at their worst level in recent history. Just 38% of ‘urgent’ (category-three) South Australian patients were seen within the recommended 30-minute time frame during 2023-24, well below the national average of 60%. It’s a significant decline from 10 years earlier, when 65% of ‘urgent’ patients were seen on time in South Australia.
During the same period, patients waited an average of 47 days for essential planned surgery. That’s 12 days longer than it was a decade prior, although a small improvement on the 2022-23 financial year when the median wait time was 49 days.
The figures are disappointing, but not surprising. They reflect the stubborn challenges our members confront daily - the overwhelming patient demand, the staffing shortages, the stretched resources.
There’s no quick fix, but (at the risk of sounding like a broken record) increased support for primary care is key. General practice is the most effective and crucially the most cost-efficient way to keep our population well and out of hospitals. The AMA’s plan to modernise Medicare will bolster general practice, reducing avoidable hospital admissions, easing ambulance ramping and leading to better experiences for patients.
Winter Demand Plan
Last week SA Health released its 2025 Winter Demand Plan, an eight-page document outlining key priorities and strategies to manage the expected increase in demand for healthcare services during winter.
We welcome the plan’s release. It’s reassuring that SA Health is taking early steps to prepare for additional capacity. But as our Vice President, Associate Professor Peter Subramaniam, said to journalists on Friday, our focus must also be on prevention and early intervention. Patients must have timely access to primary and community care so we can reduce hospital presentations wherever possible.
As the AMA’s Hospital Report Card indicates, bed block is not just a winter problem. The pressure on our hospital system continues year-round. It’s highly likely that elective surgeries will again be delayed or cancelled due to urgent demand for hospital beds. We’re calling for an honest and transparent discussion about the true capacity to meet elective surgery targets so community expectations can be appropriately set and addressed. It is essential that doctors in the public system are not placed under unrealistic pressure to meet targets that the system cannot support.
On behalf of all the doctors we represent, AMA SA stands ready to work with the South Australian Government and SA Health to ensure that our health system is fully prepared for what winter throws at us. We look forward to learning more about their plan in the weeks and months ahead.
Meeting with the Minister
On Thursday, AMA SA CEO Nicole Sykes and I attended our regular meeting with the Health Minister Chris Picton and South Australia’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael Cusack.
I noted that it’s been just over a year since the introduction of legislation allowing pharmacists to prescribe UTI medications. We asked Minister Picton to provide information about the reporting and monitoring of the impacts of pharmacy prescribing of UTI medications and he has expressed his intent to do so. We’ll update our members when we receive that information.
The meeting also offered an opportunity to outline the details of the AMA’s ‘Modernise Medicare’ campaign. I explained that the current Medicare system is biased in favour of shorter consultations and explained that although we appreciate the funding the Federal Labor Party has promised to inject into primary care, we need reform of the consultation item structure that will support GPs to facilitate longer consultations and better manage our patients’ increasingly complex needs. Minister Picton is acutely aware that proper investment in primary care is necessary to address the pain points in our public hospitals.
Read the AMA's Modernise Medicare Plan
Yours in good health,
John