WA’s health chief has vowed to target the flaws that is making the State’s public health system more costly and less efficient than the rest of the country.

David Russell-Weisz revealed yesterday the cost of delivering hospital services in WA was 14 per cent higher than the national average cost, and the gap was widening.

It came as world-renowned burns surgeon, Professor Fiona Wood, likened health spending in WA to a “runaway train” that will eventually crash.

Dr Russell-Weisz, who was appointed director general of WA Health in March 2015, said the health department needed to focus on why that gap existed.

“We are now very divergent from the national efficient price and it’s getting worse. Why is it getting worse? Other sites are actually bringing down their costs and therefore the overall efficient price is falling. We’re at14 per cent higher,” he said.

Public health spending in WA has increased by 134 per cent over 10 years to $8.05 billion in 2015, while the WA population increased by 29 per cent over the same decade.

Dr Russell-Weisz, who was speaking at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia event in Perth, said WA’s public health system was “excellent” but faced future challenges, especially if the gap between WA’s cost and the national average continued to widen.

“We need sustained effort on results of clinical quality, safety, and financial activity and performance. It’s not one without the other. Every clinical decision is a resources decision. We need financial prudence with great clinical outcomes and they can co-exist,” he said.

“We do need to make sure we have the right matching of staff FTE to what we actually deliver.”

Professor Wood, a former Australian of the Year who runs the burns unit at Fiona Stanley Hospital, said every person in WA had the capacity to change the health budget.

“I think it’s really important that we actually understand that we are riding a runaway train,” she said.

“I don’t see any opportunity for raising the funding. I only see the opportunity in engaging, not just the intellect in this room, but the whole integrity of our communities.

“Unless they have that information, unless they change their behaviour, that runaway train will hit the wall.”

Dr Russell-Weisz said the availability of GP services in WA “significantly below” the national average, 91.9 GPs per 100,000 of the population nationally compared to 73.7 in WA. He said this placed significant pressure on the health system.

He said WA’s higher health costs could be attributable to a range of factors, including longer stays in hospitals, higher wages in WA, primary and aged care shortages and lower rates of private patients in public hospitals.