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Midland hospital KPIs secret

Off limits: Key performance measures for the privatised Midland Health Campus will not be revealed. Picture: Supplied

Key performance measures for the privatised Midland Health Campus, including limits on deaths, botched procedures and cancelled operations, are being kept secret because of "commercial confidentiality".

Catholic provider St John of God Health Care will have to meet more than 170 clinical and non-clinical key performance indicators under its $5 billion contract to run the hospital, due to open later this year, or face undisclosed fines or "abatements".

Though the MHC contract on Treasury's website lists the KPIs - including rates of patients triaged within certain timeframes and medication errors - the actual targets and abatement thresholds are blank.

The issue emerged in Parliament last month when Labor MLC Amber-Jade Sanderson asked the Government what proportion of MHC staff would have to be trained in reporting child sexual abuse and was told that was "commercial in confidence".

_The West Australian _asked the Health Department and St John why that KPI and two others related to staff criminal history and working with criminal checks were commercially sensitive.

The department and St John decided "under the circumstances" to release the three KPI targets and thresholds to the newspaper. All are at 100 per cent, except for child abuse reporting.

Its threshold is equivalent to that of the average metropolitan hospital, which is higher than the State hospital average.

A spokeswoman for Health Minister Kim Hames said the release did not mean other commercial in confidence elements would be disclosed "as this would obviously affect future government contract negotiations".

Ms Sanderson said it was appalling that key governance measures were withheld from Parliament but selectively released to the media, undermining the claim they were "commercial in confidence". The rest should also be public, she said.

Health Consumers Council executive director Pip Brennan said it was concerned about the lack of MHC transparency.

Dr Hames said he was satisfied with the MHC governance model.