The Gateway Initiative was introduced in March 2003 to assist government departments and agencies to determine whether their investments are well spent, meet business and government strategic objectives and achieve value-for-money outcomes. Under the gateway process projects are independently reviewed at six 'gates' in the project lifecycle to assure successful project delivery.
The Gateway strategic assessment (Gate 1) review of the RCH strategic business case held in February 2005 concluded that the models of care were not adequately developed and recommended this be addressed prior to the subsequent business case (Gate 2) review.
Limited additional work on models of care was undertaken by the time of the Gate 2 review of the preliminary RCH business case in October 2005. That review identified the critical need to further develop the models of care before the procurement process commenced.
The final business case for the new RCH described how key government documents and policies were aligned with the four key patient groups but did not define new models of care in detail. The models of care were further developed and defined after the business case stage to inform the project brief which was released to the market.
Delays in developing models of care for the new RCH added to the complexity of the service planning process but did not invalidate the results.