A report published recently revealed that Canberra Hospital is the most expensive major hospital in the country, which suggests it is also among the country's most financially inefficient.

The report, Costs of acute admitted patients in public hospitals from 2012–13 to 2014–15, looked at the cost of providing similar treatment to patients, across comparable public hospitals.

Both Canberra's public hospitals, the Canberra Hospital and Calvary Public Hospital, were among the most expensive in the country in their respective peer groups.

The average cost of care for patients in 2014-15 ranged from $3300 to $6400 in different hospitals. At major public hospitals, the average cost to treat acute admitted patients was $4680.

And the Canberra Hospital - classified as a major hospital - was the nation's most expensive at $6000, therefore seen as less efficient.

The numbers are both baffling - how can a hospital in a small and progressive city like Canberra be so inefficient? - and not surprising, given the hospitals’ woes in recent times. Canberra’s embattled health system is now the subject of an independent review, into allegations of poor governance and workplace culture within ACT Health.

ACT Health Minister Meegan Fitzharris stopped short of announcing a judicial inquiry back in September, citing concerns about the potential for such an inquiry to turn into a “witch hunt”.

But based on these latest results, it’s clear that a board of inquiry into ACT Health is warranted. The issues plaguing the system are so deep-seated that even its own economic modelling is flawed.

Although this latest study did not include information about the quality of care or patient outcomes, and is therefore only an indirect measure of hospital efficiency, it’s tempting to view the results as just one more black mark in a litany of failings. In other words, the hospital inefficiencies are part of a larger series of systemic failings.

When Ms Fitzharris pointed out back in September that an inquiry would likely cost tens of millions of dollars, the president of the Australian Medical Association ACT Antonio Di Dio said it was an opportunity cost. He pointed out that spending money on a full-blown inquiry would save money in the long run, in terms of the cost of “bullying, poor culture and poor governance”.

These words ring even more clearly now in the wake of this report into the costs of acute care.

A spokeswoman for ACT Health has maintained that Canberra’s hospitals had become more efficient in recent years - results that did not make it into the latest report - and that separating the system into two organisations would help to bring discipline to the spending of “health dollars”. This may yet prove to be the case.

But in the meantime, this report shows that an independent inquiry into workplace culture will not go far enough in addressing the health system’s ongoing woes.