The Health Performance Council (HPC) has slammed SA Health, saying the department is more focused on defending its practices than properly analysing health data to improve outcomes.
The body made the warning after it was listed among 105 government boards, councils and committees recommended for abolition by a State Government audit.
In memo sent to Health Minister Jack Snelling’s office this week, the HPC warns that healthcare in regional South Australia will be diminished if the body is scrapped.
The council was created in 2008 to co-ordinate health systems in South Australia after hospital boards were abolished.
The HPC’s memo warns that its abolition will remove the right of the community to have independent advice, free from the political process, about the performance of systems funded by public money.
The minister today rejected the claims.
“This is a further erosion of the capacity of regional South Australians to have their issues in the spotlight,” the HPC memo says.
“The HPC was established as a safety net when country hospital boards were abolished, to ensure that regional issues were not lost in the overall reporting system.
“The Department of Health is awash with data that it consistently fails to analyse in terms of health outcomes.
“Its focus is on what it does, not what it achieves, and the culture is to defend its practices (not surprisingly as it faces considerable media and community criticism).
“The HPC provides a mirror to reflect outcomes and areas where attention needs to be paid based on evidence rather than the pressures of the day.”
The memo says the HPC is the “only body which provides independent advice alternative to the Department of Health”.
“Without the HPC, there is a risk of Minister for Health receiving limited, operational advice without long-term strategic thinking.”
It mentions specific problems relating to Indigenous communities.
“Without forensic analysis (of data) the actual outcomes of Aboriginal health are lost in the overwhelming statistics of the whole system, for example SA has a very high rate of immunisation (suggesting that there is no problem in this area) but in reality the rates for Aboriginal people are very low compared to the rest of the country
“In future (the Minister) will hear only from the Department and from community advocacy bodies such as the Aboriginal Health Council and these groups do not have access to the data nor the capacity to analyse it and report on it.”
Snelling defended the axing of the council.
“The Health Performance Council was established before stringent and extensive national reporting and checks were out in place.,” he said in a statement to InDaily.
“While some of the work of the council had been useful these functions are duplication of departmental and national reporting systems.”
