ACT Health has rejected claims the directorate is looking for at least $90 million in 'savings' to be imposed on The Canberra Hospital's budget over three years.
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Fairfax Media has been told by several sources the health directorate was looking for between $90 million and $96 million in savings at the hospital.
The savings drive was understood to be part of a broad-reaching drive for efficiencies across the Territory's health system under the directorate's Health Innovation Program.
Australian Salaried Medical Officers' Federation ACT executive officer Stephen Crook said he was told of the $90 million-plus savings figure during a meeting with senior ACT Health managers in late August.
It comes after the ACT's two main hospitals, Canberra and Calvary public, were both labelled the nation's most costly hospitals per service in a National Health Performance Authority report earlier this year.
But a spokeswoman for ACT Health rejected the claimed savings figure this week, saying the directorate was "not proposing a '$96 million budget cut' to the hospital".
The directorate did not directly answer Fairfax Media's questions about the savings, amid scant public details of the scope and aims of the innovation program, instead sending a written statement.
A spokeswoman said as part of the innovation program, the health directorate was "looking for efficiencies over a four-year period that will enable funding to be reinvested into more contemporary models of care to improve access to services, increase efficiency and free-up hospital capacity".
"Ideas for better and more cost-effective ways to run the Health Service are being sought across the whole Health Directorate – not just The Canberra Hospital - and all the funds will be retained within Health for reinvestment into system improvements and future growth activity," she said.
Mr Crook said he understood the need to improve the ACT's health system, but numerous doctors had raised concerns that front-line staff were being kept in the dark on the potential changes both at the hospital and across the directorate.
"I imagine this innovation program is about doing more with less, and it's all very well to use these contemporary words, but the reality can be quite different on the front-line," he said.
"We want to not just be kept in the loop on the changes being made, but we want management to actually sit down with doctors and listen to what people are saying, rather than thinking up plans at a higher level and trying to implement them without consultation."
