Winter commanders appointed and extra teams set up to try steer hospitals through flu season

The Cook Government will bring on five senior health officials to head their departments’ winter response and hire extra dedicated teams to streamline discharges and bed turnarounds as the health system braces for winter. The winter commanders will hold the positions from April to September, set to oversee their respective health providers. Each of the Child and Adolescent Health Service, East, North and South Metropolitan Health Services and WA Country Health Service will have a commander. The roles are based off an Incident Command model and each commander will be responsible for managing various operational areas such as patient flow, workforce, bed capacity and logistics. The Government hopes the central model will improve the speed of decision making and help co-ordination among the different departments. To assist with this goal, extra winter care teams made up of medical, nursing, allied health and care co-ordination staff will operate from June to September in Perth’s major hospitals. They’ll be stationed seven days a week at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Fiona Stanley Hospital and Royal Perth Hospital, and are set to help discharge patients, especially on weekends when allied health workers are often not working. A winter care team was trialled at one hospital last year, leading for its full roll-out now. Separate teams of up to six will also be deployed to focus on bed turnarounds across 10 hospitals including in Joondalup, Midland and Bunbury. The teams will focus on improving the availability of beds by speeding up the bed cleaning and turnaround process. Both the winter care teams and bed turnaround teams will be staffed through additional hires. Health Minister Meredith Hammat said the newly created teams would help improve patient care. “The winter commanders will provide focused leadership and oversight for the hospitals they already know so well, while the new winter care and bed turnaround teams will deliver practical frontline support to help patients move through hospitals safely and more efficiently,” she said. “By improving co-ordination of care, how patients move through the health system and ensuring beds are ready when they’re needed, we’re helping ensure Western Australians receive the healthcare they need, when they need it.”