❓ Question regarding the staffing levels, wait times, and patient outcomes related to cardiothoracic surgery at Fiona Stanley Hospital. The response indicates staffing shortages are being addressed, data limitations exist, wait times have increased, and cause of death data is unavailable.
AnsweredQoN 1332Legislative Council
QuestionView source ↗
I refer to cardiothoracic surgery undertaken at Fiona Stanley Hospital, and I ask: (a) does the cardiothoracic unit have a full complement of surgeons and, if not, how many surgeons is it short; (b) how many patients were on the waitlist and what was the average wait time to see a cardiothoracic surgeon at 11 March 2017 and 11 March 2023; (c) what was the average wait time for surgery once a cardiothoracic surgeon had been seen at 11 March 2017 and 11 March 2023; and (d) how many patients have been removed from the waitlist due to death occuring before surgery could be performed over the past three years?
AnswerView source ↗
Answered
9 May 2023
Responded by
Leader of the House representing the Minister for Health
Response time
6 days
(a) The Fiona Stanley Hospital (FSH) cardiothoracic unit is currently within 0.1 FTE of a full complement and will benefit from an additional 1.0 FTE cardiothoracic surgeon planned to commence in July 2023.
(b) Accurate and robust outpatient data is not currently available. The Department of Health, in collaboration with Health Service Providers, is currently undertaking an Outpatient Reform Project that involves extensive work to improve the quality, consistency and accuracy of outpatient data.
(c) Patient safety is the priority and urgent cases are reviewed and escalated through the appropriate channel. The median wait time at the available data census date for all patients on the elective surgery waiting list for cardiothoracic surgery at Fiona Stanley Hospital as at Sunday 12 March 2017 was 24 days and as at Sunday 12 March 2023 was 95 days. Caution should be exercised comparing figures between pre-covid and post-covid time periods.
(d) Where a patient is removed with a reason code ‘deceased’ the cause of death is unknown to FSH. It is therefore not possible using existing data sources to attribute deaths which occur while a patient is waiting on elective surgery to the underlying condition requiring treatment.
(b) Accurate and robust outpatient data is not currently available. The Department of Health, in collaboration with Health Service Providers, is currently undertaking an Outpatient Reform Project that involves extensive work to improve the quality, consistency and accuracy of outpatient data.
(c) Patient safety is the priority and urgent cases are reviewed and escalated through the appropriate channel. The median wait time at the available data census date for all patients on the elective surgery waiting list for cardiothoracic surgery at Fiona Stanley Hospital as at Sunday 12 March 2017 was 24 days and as at Sunday 12 March 2023 was 95 days. Caution should be exercised comparing figures between pre-covid and post-covid time periods.
(d) Where a patient is removed with a reason code ‘deceased’ the cause of death is unknown to FSH. It is therefore not possible using existing data sources to attribute deaths which occur while a patient is waiting on elective surgery to the underlying condition requiring treatment.
Explore WA Government Data
Search the full archive in the free dashboard, or query programmatically via API.
Explore more
Government Gazette
Appointments, regulatory notices, planning changes.
Hansard
Debates, questions, speeches and sentiment.
Tabled Papers
Reports and documents tabled in Parliament.
Committees
Committee profiles and recent reports.
Regulations
Subsidiary legislation with filters and summaries.
Bills
Proposed laws and parliamentary progress.
Acts
Current WA legislation and summaries.
Explanatory Memoranda
Bills with EMs (text/PDF) available.
Members
MP profiles, party breakdown and rankings.
Pollie Rankings
Data-driven rankings across 19 categories.
Amendment Chains
Track how schemes and regulations evolve over time.