Southern Adelaide supports a population of nearly 350,000 people,
and we also have a very strong connection to our country patients,
and to patients who come from interstate,
so we have a number of retrievals and also referrals from interstate areas.
We've got two hospitals, Flinders Medical Centre and the Noarlunga Hospital,
and the current Repat site, as you heard from Brendan, includes still a number of active services
including Radiology, the Rehabilitation Service, which is a convalescent or subacute rehabilitation,
our Hydrotherapy facilities which was great to see reopened in May,
and Orthotics and Prosthetics which is both a clinical and a manufacturing service,
which has been important for our patients.
The other services that we provide include the Jamie Larcombe site,
which is at the Glenside Health Precinct,
where we focus with our Veterans' Mental Health.
We have a number of other community services that are important for our population
and for the health needs and for our patients.
But we have some emerging challenges, and I wanted to talk about those a little tonight,
to share with you about why the Repat precinct
is going to be important from a Southern Adelaide point of view.
Unfortunately in the way that we have our system set up at the moment,
we actually have a problem where we have people at times in the wrong place.
I think the really important message is that hospitals are great places if you're unwell,
if you're sick and injured,
but if you really need a therapeutic and holistic rehabilitation approach and care
in a community setting, it's not the right place for you.
So when we start talking about what does this mean about people in the wrong place,
is that some people who actually need to stay with us because of this inability to move to,
to transition to other types of care,
can mean that they stay longer than 3 weeks, 4 weeks, 5 weeks, 6 weeks, sometimes months.
So we think there's an opportunity that with different care options,
we see now that our patients really need specialised care for that transition support,
and we see that they're not actually in the hospitals that we actually have at the moment,
and that when people don't need that critical medical experience,
we actually believe that this transition support is the piece that's missing in our health service.
So the challenges also mean that we have people in the wrong place and hospitals
which can mean there's inadequate space for patients overall,
it may create other health problems,
it can reduce quality of life,
and when we actually don't have the beds to support all the patients that need to
come to the hospital, we can have longer waiting times in Emergency Departments,
longer waiting times for surgery,
and there are less people receiving the hospital care that they actually need.
I think the other really big message in this, and our challenge, an emerging challenge
is about the population growth in the South.
It's expected to increase by 10% over the next 12 years,
and due to those high health needs it means that our older groups of patients,
and people in our community will need increasing health services,
and that increase would be 26%.
The other really big issue is the issue about our workforce.
We need to avoid duplication of services,
and equipment and ensure that specialised staff are actually being used to their full potential.
And the South's focus is actually to create specialised teams
that have increasing expertise in managing the ageing population's needs.
It's becoming a very important specialty,
and out of all of this, whatever decisions we make, quality and safety of patient care
is the foundation for all our service decisions,
and will continue to be into the future.
So we're going to look at our future Southern Network, this is what we're thinking about.
The Flinders Medical Centre is maintained as the big complex hospital.
It's focused on the beginning, to the end of life,
and it has all the necessary clinical services to provide those complex medical
and surgical care and trauma care,
and all the appropriate specialisation of
workforce and skills across the continuum of Nurses, Doctors and Allied Health professionals.
The Repat precinct becomes a vital health service
for the growing number of patients who require holistic care,
and rehabilitation services in a more community setting,
and it would balance the capacity at Flinders and Noarlunga
to ensure we best to meet the demands of all of our patients.
For Noarlunga we develop that into a centre of excellence for the care and support of older people,
and it's supported by a lot of complimentary clinical services for mental health,
and geriatric and dementia care, and for chronic disease management.
We believe that these three sites set up in this way will actually provide the right balance,
and support, to sustain services into the future
and to meet the demands of our community,
and I think when we start thinking about that in the context of the transition care,
it really comes back to why Repat is special.
It really has got lower stress environment, so it means that there is that more therapeutic space,
and an outside world that people can connect with.
And I think our vision for the Repat is to best help the community
by providing that therapeutic and home-like environment,
for people who otherwise stuck in hospital.
To better support patients and their families throughout the whole patient journey,
from the beginning to end, for everything that they need and see that as a collective and as a whole,
as part of therapy.
And our vision for Flinders and Noarlunga as part of this network,
is to provide reliable and respectful services
to patients for the people who are really sick and make sure it's always safe and of high quality.
We need to make sure we can meet our emergency and surgical demand,
and have right patients in the right place.
So, for a world-class health precinct, with holistic rehabilitation and therapeutic services
to provide meaningful and lasting care for the southern region is needed,
and we think the Repat could be the home to this missing piece.
Thank you.