And the efficiency of other areas of the hospital will be overhauled to help move flu patients quickly through the emergency department to admission, monitoring or discharge.

State cabinet secretary Mary-Anne Thomas visited Ballarat Health Service on Monday to announce $1.8 million funding for the service as part of a $50 million package to equip 17 of Victoria’s largest health services to be prepared for the coming winter flu season.

“Winter is coming and with winter comes the flu,” Ms Thomas said.

“What that means is more and more people presenting to our hospitals and putting increased demand on our hospital services.”

Last year there were more than 48,000 confirmed cases of flu in Victoria.

BHS chief executive Dale Fraser said last year’s flu season was one of the worst ever recorded in Ballarat.

“Having additional resources to treat additional patients will be very very helpful to ensure we maintain a high standard of care for those most vulnerable in the community,” he said.

“We will expand medical and nursing care to ensure we remain ahead of the pace. Our aim is to plan for the worst and hope for the best.”

The extra funding will be used to employ more doctors and nurses, open more beds and explore other methods of treatment including the diversion program.

BHS executive director of acute operations Ben Kelly said the lessons learned from last year’s winter demand would help plan for this year’s peak.

“The emergency department itself is not always the area of focus for additional money because patients need to be able to come out the other side of the ED: a lot go home but a lot need to be admitted and we need to make sure there is sufficient room for patients to move to from the ED,” Mr Kelly said.

Weekend staffing levels, particularly those in allied health, the Queen Elizabeth Centre and other sub-acute beds will also be examined and the transit lounge, for people waiting to be discharged, will be improved to free up more ward beds for the ED to move admitted patients to.

Mr Fraser said despite the record flu season last winter, BHS staff had relatively little illness.

“More than 80 per cent of staff are vaccinated against the flu so we had a low incidence of flu and the lowest level of sick leave for many years,” he said.

“We have a range of protective procedures in place to ensure those at risk of being contagious are isolated and we maintain appropriate procedures to make sure a patient’s care is optimised without harm to others.”

Mr Fraser urged those at high risk of flu, including babies, children, older people and those with existing health conditions, to get the flu vaccination.

“Anyone who feels they are vulnerable should see their GP to get vaccinated, but also undertake good preventative care – wash hands, isolate yourself from people who might be unwell, and take care of yourself,” he said.