“At ACT Budget Estimates today the Health Minister repeatedly refused to take responsibility for the fiasco with Digital Health Record (DHR) reporting.”

“This is a pathetic abdication of ministerial responsibility,” Shadow Health Minister, Leanne Castley, said today.

“Despite being clearly warned before go-live about the high risks of problems with data reporting and yesterday blaming subordinates for not escalating the concerns of frontline data teams, today the Minister was in denial about there being a significant problem.”

This is despite the Budget inexcusably missing 12 pages of 2022-23 strategic and accountability indicators for Canberra Health Services.

Ms Castley also said the Minister was all over the shop when explaining why she proceeded with the rollout, despite being warned there were high risks for data reporting.

Yesterday at Estimates the Minister was bragging about DHR replacing 40 different systems. The excuse she offered yesterday for this fiasco was that, “We were first in Australia to go live with so many aspects of the Epic system.” The rollout in the ACT was favourably compared to rollouts in Queensland and Victoria, which began with one hospital or district before scaling up.

Asked today why, before trying to replace 40 different systems the ACT didn’t proceed more cautiously as occurred in Queensland and Victoria, the Minister’s excuse was that the ACT “was a relatively small system” and that the ACT is “effectively the size of a local health district”.

“The Minister can’t have it both ways. If the ACT’s rollout is no larger than initial rollouts in Queensland and Victoria, then she has no excuse for DHR reporting in the ACT being a fiasco,” Ms Castley said.

“If it was more sophisticated, why didn’t the Minister proceed cautiously. If it wasn’t, why is data reporting a fiasco?”

Ms Castley noted that the Health Minister She had also failed to assure the Estimates Committee that there were no other units at the Canberra Hospital at risk of losing or having their training accreditation suspended.