Sangster review finds Labor hospital plan was 'deeply flawed', new LNP government promises 2,600 new beds

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Queensland's hospital expansion plan will be overhauled, with the state government promising to deliver 2,600 new beds. But the price tag and delivery date remains unknown.  It follows a report into the previous Labor government's expansion proposal labelled "deeply flawed".

Transcript

00:00The plan to take Queensland's health system off life support unveiled.

00:07It's a task that presents enormous challenges.

00:10The government will deliver 2,600 new hospital beds across the state,

00:15400 more than its Labor predecessors proposed.

00:19The hospital program in its current form is not and never was going to be able to be delivered by 2028.

00:28The latest advice in September of last year was that they were deliverable by 2028.

00:34The cost or completion date for the expansion is yet to be revealed.

00:38Mr Nicholls flew to Bundaberg to inspect construction of its new hospital and talk up the new plan.

00:44But is the government breaking a pre-election promise?

00:48David Christofoli committed to 2,200 beds by 2028.

00:52I've heard that said but I've checked and that commitment has not been made.

00:57Do you have a number?

00:59Certainly we have matched the Labor government's promise for beds.

01:04So you'll match it but not exceed it?

01:06Certainly match it.

01:08A scathing review by health infrastructure official Sam Sangster found Labor's program had blown out by $7 billion to $17 billion.

01:19He labelled it deeply flawed with the planning of projects taking six weeks rather than the usual six months.

01:26My view would be plan slowly, execute fast would have been a better approach.

01:31The report found there were grossly inflated prices for the hospital car park program.

01:36One hospital car space would have cost up to $250,000, six times the market average of up to $60,000.

01:46Changes made by the government include almost 200 additional beds for the Gold Coast's new hospital at Coomera, taking it to 600 beds.

01:55And a plan to operate both the new and old Toowoomba hospitals has been scrapped with all services to be transferred to the new facility.

02:03Timelines for the government's health plan are expected by the end of the year.

02:07the end of the year.

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