WA election 2025: Libby Mettam accuses Cook Government of delaying clinical incident report

WA Liberal leader Libby Mettam has accused the State Government of attempting to bury an unfavourable report ahead of the State election. The Your Safety in Our Hands in Hospital report offers an annual insight into the performance of WA’s hospitals and health services. It details the number of sentinel events and severity assessment code 1 incidents — major incidents that led or could have led to death or serious harm due to healthcare or lack thereof. The 2022-23 report revealed about one in five of the 585 confirmed SAC1 incidents resulted in death (114). But ahead of a State election where the embattled health system remains in sharp focus, the 2023-24 report is yet to be released. Ms Mettam, who is also shadow health minister, said it’s hardly surprising the report is yet to materialise, after a dismal result in the Productivity Commission’s recent report on government services. “This is the report that tells us the true state of Western Australia’s health system and on the eve of an election the government appears to be burying it,” she said. “We learned from the Productivity Commission that WA Labor has run the worst hospital system in the country — every single hospital audited required remedial work.” Public hospitals are regularly assessed against the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards to prove they can deliver safe, high quality healthcare. Each of the 55 hospitals assessed in WA “required remedial actions to achieve accreditation” in 2023 — the only jurisdiction in which 100 per cent of facilities required fixes. “Western Australians deserve to know the state of our health system,” Ms Mettam said. “If WA Labor were actually proud of their record in health, they would be releasing this report, not hiding it.” Delays in publishing the patient safety report have become commonplace, with the last two years’ reports overdue five and four months, respectively. A WA Health spokesperson referred The West to its response in December when it said it was “in the final stages” of preparing the report and “expect to be able to publish it shortly”. Ten weeks later, the report has not yet been published. While the report continues to be finalised, the metropolitan and country health services’ annual reports offer an insight into the state of patient safety in WA hospitals. In 2023-24, there were 408 SAC1 incidents on the books across WA Country Health Service, the Child and Adolescent Health Service and the North, East and South metropolitan health services. Of those, 82 were still being reviewed. More than one in four incidents (112) resulted in death, and about three in five (243) caused serious harm. “After the biggest boom in our State’s history, it shouldn’t feel like our health system is on life support, and the quality going backwards,” Ms Mettam said. It comes as the Health Services Union of WA took carriage of the public health workforce survey after the State Government refused to commit to conducting any future workforce surveys, citing review of the current survey. Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson declined to respond to questions around accusations the report was being delayed until after the March 8 poll, instead directing The West to WA Health.