Initial reaction to the WA State Budget

This week the WA State Budget was handed down, with the government identifying jobs, health, and housing as key priorities.

• around 10% of Category 3 outpatient referrals are waiting more than one year
• around 20% of Category 1 referrals are waiting beyond recommended timeframes

According to WA Health the category definitions are:

• Category 1 – Urgent: Within 30 days (potential to deteriorate quickly)
• Category 2 – Semi-urgent: Within 90 days (causes pain/dysfunction, low risk of rapid deterioration)
• Category 3 – Non-urgent: Within 365 days (causes pain/dysfunction, unlikely to deteriorate)

These categories reflect clinical urgency, but lower urgency categories may still involve significant pain, reduced quality of life, or functional impacts for consumers while waiting for care.

While there is some additional funding for outpatient services, the increase in outpatient staffing appears relatively small.

These numbers matter because being referred as a lower category does not mean a condition is unimportant or that people are not suffering while they wait.

As recent media reporting has highlighted, delays can have a significant impact on people’s health, wellbeing, finances, and quality of life.

We will continue to review the budget in detail over the coming days and share further analysis focused on what these investments mean for health consumers across WA.

Video Transcript 1: Clare Mullen fronts the Press outside of Dumas House

Hello, I’m Clare Mullen from Health Consumers’ Council WA.

We’re the peak body for people who use health services, the patients, the families, the carers.

I’ll start by saying it’s obviously a great budget for health and we’re going to be watching and seeing what that means for the people who use healthcare.

So first up, obviously, the significant investment in health infrastructure very welcome as the state grows.

Some questions remain, however, about the experience of people when they’re in those hospitals.

2 fronts. 1 is a great opportunity missed, I think, which is the opportunity to really address cost of living and health infrastructure by, for example, a bold move that could have been done, which would be to make hospital parking free or low cost.

We know that that is a huge impost on people who are using health services everyday.

The second area is that the budget figures say that people who are referred to hospital for outpatients.

At the moment, 10% of people are waiting over a year for their appointment and 20% of people who have been referred for urgent referrals are waiting longer than they should.

And yet the investment in outpatients seems to be very small.

And so for most people, when they use hospitals, it will be outpatients that they use.

So we’d like to perhaps have seen a greater investment there.

And the third area, which we’d love to see more, more and more people are using health services.

That’s why we’re seeing a huge investment.

But unfortunately, all too often we know that when people speak up about their health care, when they’ve got concerns or questions, they go unheard.

And what we know is that that can sometimes have catastrophic consequences.

We would love to have seen an investment in individual advocacy services that can support people’s voices to be heard and to be part of their healthcare journey so that we can avoid people having experiences where, had they been listened to, they would have had a more positive outcome.

So overall a great budget for health and we’re looking forward to seeing how that will translate into an experience for people on the ground.

Is it enough given so much of its long term, is it enough to make a difference this winter?

I would say that it is great to see the investment in the winter strategy and we have been doing a survey of consumers about what they intend to do and it’s really interesting to see that most people do intend to get vaccinated, most people do intend to do take action to stay well.

So I think it is encouraging to have seen the investment in increasing immunisation, in increasing access to other parts of the health services.

But time will tell.

And I think the opportunity that potentially is there is to involve the community in conversations about how to get the message out.

We can all do things as community members to stay well.

And I think that there’s more that can be done to help get that message into community.

Thank you. Thanks.

Video Transcript 2: Clare Mullen, Executive Director

“So I have just left the annual state budget lockup, which is where you hear from the Premier and the Treasurer and then you get locked in a room for a number of hours.

So headlines obviously as had already been trailed, this is a really big budget for health.

The priorities that were being restated are jobs, health and housing.

In terms of great things, obviously a lot of investment in health infrastructure, some known investment again in the winter strategy.

So there’s a bit in there about helping people stay well, immunisation, that sort of thing.

In terms of missed opportunities, there’s no reference in there to cost of living relief around the cost of hospital parking.

So there’s a lot of investment in infrastructure.

But unfortunately, as many of us know, going to the hospital on a regular basis can pretty much have you out of pocket hundreds of dollars.

So we raised that point and we’d hope to see something like that in future years.

Great to see investment in the mental health advocacy service.

So the cost there are going to go up by about 30% next year.

Some of that related to them also taking on new services.

But again a missed opportunity is the rest of WAS individual health advocacy service, no mention of that and so we can only assume that it’s not covered.

Finally, there was some official statistics in there that say that if you’re referred for an outpatient’s appointment at the moment, you can expect 10% of people are waiting over a year for a category 3 and 20% of people are waiting beyond the recommended wait times for the most serious of referrals. That’s the CAT1.

Unfortunately, while there’s a small increase in the budget for outpatients, only a really small increase in outpatient staffing.

So it’ll be really interesting to see what the government’s plans are to make a significant difference to that because as recent media has shown, even if you’re referred for a category three, it doesn’t mean that it’s not serious, it doesn’t mean that it’s not important.

And we really want to see those numbers improve dramatically.

So overall, a good budget for health and the impact on the consumers experiencing the health system, We will wait and see.