WA to lose out on health bonus

WA will miss out on more than $5 million in Federal Government reward payments because it failed to reach performance targets for hospital emergency care and elective surgery last year.

The Commonwealth will not make its final ruling on Council of Australian Governments funding until June, but Health Minister Kim Hames confirmed this week WA did not meet the target for emergency department patients to be treated within four hours, which meant it was ineligible for $5.3 million in incentives.

Under the National Emergency Access Target agreement, WA - which was the first State to introduce the four-hour rule - was expected to handle 81 per cent of patients in that time frame but only managed 77.8 per cent.

Dr Hames defended the Government's performance, saying he understood other States were unable to meet their emergency department targets, despite them being lower than those set for WA.

Hospitals were now working to further reduce delays in patients getting care, including better discharge planning.

WA also missed most targets to treat elective surgery patients within recommended times, which meant it was eligible for only $1.4m of the $5.4 million reward funding.

Dr Hames believed the State could still qualify later for the remaining $4 million, to be rolled over to this year, because it met baseline targets for all elective surgery categories.

"WA continues to perform more elective surgery than ever before and shows improved performance by reducing waiting times for all urgency categories," he said.

Australian Medical Association WA president Richard Choong said it was disappointing WA had missed out on funding. He was concerned it has not met a target for category 1 elective surgery patients, who were the most urgent.

Shadow health minister Roger Cook said the Government had failed to maintain progress because of cutbacks.