The Western Australian (WA) Government has announced a system-wide procurement reform in a bid to improve the delivery of health maintenance across the state’s neglected public hospitals, following a damning report that highlighted a reactive, underdeveloped and constrained maintenance system.
Conducted by former Under Treasurer Michael Barnes and former Department of Health Director General Dr Neale Fong, the audit – which allegedly cost $400,000 – revealed three-quarters of all maintenance work (75 percent) in the North and East Metropolitan Health Service is deemed reactive, covering several major hospitals including Joondalup and Royal Perth.
The report also identified outdated contract systems and a lack of dedicated funding to maintain the state’s $7.6 billion portfolio of ageing hospitals, with both proactive and reactive maintenance competing with clinical service demands.
WA Health was found to have little data to benchmark asset performance, no system-wide targets for maintenance spend or maintenance planning, a shortage of in-house trades, and complex procurement processes that were slowing down maintenance work.
Initiated by Health Infrastructure Minister John Carey in August last year, the audit followed numerous media reports of mould, free-flowing sewage and water leaks in WA hospitals, and a backlog of more than 1,000 maintenance work orders.
In response to the 24 findings and eight recommendations, the WA Government has pledged to reduce red tape for lower-value maintenance projects, while still ensuring appropriate compliance controls for procurement.
It will also develop a health-specific trades and services panel to make it easier for the Department of Health (DoH) to procure work, establish KPIs to clear expectations for maintenance activities, and provide greater transparency of maintenance expenditure in future budgets.
Under the reform, the DoH will engage with the Department of Housing and Works to help boost accountability and increase efficiency.
“Ultimately, we’ve got to do better in the procurement and in the management, and that’s the main message from the review,” said Carey.
“We’re endorsing, we’re accepting all the recommendations and I’m committed to delivering them.”
Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas has lashed out at the findings, saying he would be embarrassed to be in Carey’s shoes.
“These failings sheet home to him. He can’t say I’ve been in the job five minutes. He’s had carriage of this portfolio for the entirety of this current term of Parliament. So this is on him,” he said.
“I’d be especially embarrassed if I were the Premier, and particularly embarrassed if I were Amber-Jade Sanderson. They had carriage of the health portfolio for four years, and then another four years into this term of Parliament.
“What we’ve seen here is systemic failure to act. There’s been no planning, there’s been no forethought.”
Australian Medical Association WA president Dr Kyle Hoath said the audit was a “we told you so moment”.
“It was kind of validating today to actually see that these problems are real. These problems in our health system, they are there. It’s not a world-class health system,” he said.
“Nothing about this report is good, other than we now know what we can focus on.”
Coinciding with the audit, the WA Government has established a $50 million Health Asset Maintenance Fund to supercharge maintenance completion at several facilities, including Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Royal Perth and Armadale Health Service.
