The changes to staffing levels come two months after the state government,saying the previous government had promised the funding without guaranteeing the hospital could deliver the promised youth mental health beds.
Healthscope has a contract with the NSW government to run the public wing of Northern Beaches Hospital until 2038.Nick Moir
Hospital management on Monday informed nursing staff of a proposed restructure of staffing levels across its public,private and short-stay mental health units.
Under the plan,the number of full-time nurse unit managers would be halved,with the remaining two managers receiving a pay rise to oversee 61 mental health beds across four specialist wards.
The hospital is also proposing to cut one 12-hour day shift in the hospital’s private mental health unit,reducing the ward to three nurses.
Some shifts will also be cut from the hospital’s private maternity services,including an antenatal liaison nurse role.
One nurse working at the hospital,who was not authorised to speak publicly,said staff cuts and shortages meant nurses were frequently asked to work in areas outside their scope of practice.
“We feel burnt out,unappreciated and deeply concerned for the care we can provide to local families when staffing levels and skills mix is so poor,” they said. “Cut after cut has left morale in the gutter.”
In a statement,a spokesman for the hospital’s operating company,Healthscope,said consultation had begun on “some minor staffing and rostering” changes to its adult mental health services and maternity services.
“The proposed changes will in no way compromise the quality of patient care and will have a minimal impact on existing roles. NBH’s child and adolescent mental health services will not be affected by these proposed changes.”
Chief executive Andrew Newton is leaving after four-and-a-half years running Northern Beaches Hospital.Supplied
Chief executive Andrew Newton last week announced his resignation from the role he has held since 2019 to become chief executive at WentWest,a federal government-funded primary health service run out of the Westmead Health Precinct.
Newton will continue in the role while the search for his replacement takes place,the Healthscope spokesman said.
“Andrew has done an outstanding job over the past four and a half years,and he leaves with our thanks and best wishes.”
Last month,theAustralian Financial Review reported that Healthscope’s investors had appointed corporate consultants to help restructure about $1.6 billion in debt. The company is urgently seeking to address falling revenues by raising the amount private health insurers pay for their services.
Chief executive Greg Horan told the paper a “profit pool shift from private hospitals to private health insurers” had affected the company’s bottom line.
“The alignment over the past few years has started to get out of kilter,” he said.
Dr Sophie Scamps,the federal MP for the northern beaches electorate of Mackellar,said she was concerned Healthscope’s well-publicised financial pressures were affecting patient care.
“There are inevitable tensions between the need to be profitable and patient care,” she said. “This is not the service the people of the northern beaches were promised when the former Liberal government embarked on this experiment.”
Canadian private equity giant Brookfield acquired Healthscope for $4.4 billion in 2019 and has a contract with the NSW government to run the hospital’s public wing until 2038. ASIC records show the company earned $186 million from public patients in 2022.
When asked if he was concerned about the staff cuts and financial issues,NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said the government “expects Healthscope to deliver high-quality healthcare to the people of the northern beaches.”
Labor went to last year’s state election promising to enforce minimum staffing requirements,beginning with at least one nurse to every three patients in emergency departments.
Independent state member for Wakehurst Michael Regan said nurses had a previous agreement that Northern Beaches private hospital would match staffing levels required in NSW public hospitals,but that agreement expired in October.
Regan wrote to Park earlier this month,saying the lapsed agreement meant Northern Beaches Hospital would be left behind the rest of the state.
“At a time when mandated staffing levels are being increased across the public system,the Northern Beaches Hospital is going backwards,” he said. “This is unacceptable.”
The hospital’s performance is mixed. In the emergency department,the median time from arriving to leaving was four hours,31 minutes longer than the state average for October–December last year.
Patients admitted to the public hospital spent an average of 4.4 days between arriving and leaving,less than the five-day average at comparable hospitals and the six-day average for all NSW hospitals.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories,analysis and insights..