My question is directed to the chair of the Public Accounts Committee. Will the chair update the House on the progress of the inquiry into the safety and quality of health services provided by Northern Beaches Hospital?

Mr JASON LI (Strathfield): I thank the member for Wakehurst for the question. He is an absolute champion for his community on the northern beaches, and he agitated for the performance audits into the Northern Beaches Hospital. I am sure that the question is motivated by the need of his community to know what went wrong and how it got so bad, as well as looking forward for some reassurance that their healthcare needs will be met to the level of quality that every resident of New South Wales deserves. I report to the House that the Public Accounts Committee has received 255 submissions and conducted three days of hearings. It is working through the evidence right now.

This is a complex and challenging inquiry for two main reasons. Firstly, the majority of the submissions we received were confidential, and much of the evidence in the hearing was heard in camera, which means we cannot refer to them in our findings or our report. Secondly, we are well aware that there is an ongoing coronial inquest into the tragic death of Joe Massa. The last thing that we want is for our inquiry to compromise or prejudice in any way the inquest or any potential future criminal or civil proceedings. We have been very careful to stay away from any clinical evidence or attribution of responsibility. Instead, we have focused on the policy and systemic issues.

It is not appropriate for me to comment on the deliberations of the committee or to pre-empt any of its findings. I will, however, quote from some of the public evidence and material that is currently available on the committee website. This sworn evidence is from Associate Professor Patricia Hullah, director of adult medicine and a member of the Northern Beaches Hospital medical advisory committee:

"Can I just acknowledge that we weren't set up to succeed for the patients of the Northern Beaches, but we're doctors and we're clinicians. Where we saw deficiencies, we worked to fill them."

In her sworn evidence Prue Irvine, an organiser at the Health Services Union, said:

"Yes. I think they cut staff … The security team went from, I think, having five people on shift to three, which put our members at a lot of risk of harm."

In her sworn evidence, Dr Tatiana Lowe, a staff specialist at Northern Beaches Hospital and member of the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation, said that the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine:

"… recommend we should roster 32 to 40 doctors per 24 hours. We routinely, as I've said, have 30 on the roster and, as discussed, we operate three to nine doctors lower than that. We should have four to five consultants per shift. We routinely have three. We should roster eight doctors on a night shift. We routinely have five. … working under those circumstances just means the risk inevitably is higher on all shifts."

In further sworn evidence, Associate Professor Patricia Hullah said:

"The lack of integration and the Electronic Medical Records system [eMR] has been really challenging.

…

A lot of our patients move between different service providers in the LHD. Mona Vale Hospital is public, and we can't see what's happening there because our eMRs aren't integrated."

In sworn evidence, Adjunct Professor Anthony Schembri, Chief Executive of the Northern Sydney Local Health District, said that the many opportunities include:

"The opportunity to fully integrate the Northern Beaches into northern Sydney's clinical networks, to integrate the hospital in line with our workforce profiles and staffing, such as Birthrate Plus in maternity, nursing hours per patient day for our nurses, and the opportunity … to bring research and clinical trials in a way that previously the community may not have had access to …"

Finally, Dr David Jollow, Director of Women's Health and a member of the medical advisory committee, said:

"… we support the decision to return many services to the public hospital system … this needs to include how our community continues to access high-quality public services as well as high-quality private services."

When we boil it down, Northern Beaches Hospital was a public hospital, including a public emergency department, that was put in the hands of a foreign private equity firm. What could possibly go wrong? The Minns Labor Government passed Joe's law, so we will hopefully never again have the privatisation of acute health services. I thank everybody who has contributed to the inquiry so far, particularly the witnesses. I acknowledge the work of the Minister for Health, the Treasurer and their teams. They have done the difficult work of unpacking this very complex commercial arrangement to return the hospital to public hands without there being an unconscionable bill for New South Wales taxpayers. I acknowledge the member for Wakehurst for his outstanding advocacy.

10 February 2026, 15:28.