Estimates - Health - Radiology

CHAIR - I'll have my first question. We're an hour in, almost. Minister, I had a tour, and it was just after Mr O'Byrne had had a tour of the Royal. I appreciate the opportunity to do that. It hadn't changed much since I'd worked there some years ago. I want to specifically talk about radiology and the medical imaging area. You have to agree that Tasmanians are waiting far too long for a lot of their diagnostic services and that's nothing on the staff. It's a real system problem. But waiting for diagnostic services can have adverse medical outcomes. There are a number of interventions and scans that are undertaken but one of the travesties, I think, was that the CT angiography suite was not in action. I believe that there were skill problems with ultra-sonographers or specifically trained radiographers. Can you just talk about medical imaging and specifically to when the CT angiography suite might be up and properly running? Is it because of vacancy controls? Is it radiology or radiographer shortages? What's the difficulty there in making sure that things run smoothly in one of our prime hospitals? 

Mrs ARCHER - Well, the integrated CT angio unit can operate either as a combined platform or as two separate units, being a second angiography suite and a third CT scanner for the hospital, providing flexibility in service delivery. I'm advised that the room is currently utilised on a clinical needs basis to support time-critical cases or during maintenance of other equipment. A recent successful recruitment of three additional radiologists will enable a phased approach to full operation of the suite, initially focusing on CT scanner use. This, I think, goes to a wider issue that you identified around workforce challenges within medical imaging services which is not unique to Tasmania and reflects broader national and international shortages. 

CHAIR - I'm talking about Tasmania and I'm talking about vacancy control as well. 

Mrs ARCHER - Specific initiatives to attract permanent medical imaging staff include the introduction of market allowances, graduate pathways and relocation and other retention incentives. I might see if the secretary has anything further to add. 

Mr WEBSTER - These are particular challenges, I know you've said it's for the state, but for the whole country. The Health Workforce Taskforce, under the health ministers, is working on a national strategy to address these shortages. But in Tasmania, we have put market allowances in place to try and attract and retain additional staffing in this area. As the minister just said, we've secured an extra three. That allows us to start using that suite more regularly over the next period. But we continue to try to recruit to those levels