Proposed wide changes to South Australian health services will see inpatients at the Repatriation General Hospital in Adelaide redirected elsewhere.

Patients will be directed to sites including Flinders Medical Centre in the southern suburbs where 55 new rehabilitation beds will be established along with a new psychogeriatric ward at a cost of more than $150 million.

SA Health Department said patients could also be redirected to Noarlunga Hospital, further south, as it became a statewide centre for day surgery.

Noarlunga's walk-in emergency department would be closed and re-established across the road at the site of an existing GP Plus clinic.

Health Minister Jack Snelling estimated 87 per cent of patients requiring emergency care at Noarlunga would be seen more quickly.

In the northern suburbs, repat patients could be sent to Modbury Hospital as it became a major rehabilitation and sub-acute centre with a focus on rehabilitation and geriatric care.

A dedicated centre for elective eye surgery would also be established at the hospital.

A health spokesman said the Repatriation Hospital at Daw Park, which currently has 240 beds, would still be used for services such as prosthetics.

He said staff would be redeployed to other sites but did not rule out the chance of redundancies.

The spokesman did, however, rule out the prospect of any job cuts from bringing forward a relocation of the Adelaide Women's and Children's Hospital to a site alongside the new Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH).

That relocation originally was scheduled for 2023 but the Government said it was keen for an earlier move once the new Royal Adelaide opens next year.

The proposed changes were announced as part of the Government's Transforming Health initiative.

It would cost $252 million over four years and include a new $15 million "Centre for Excellence" for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

This would be established to replace services at ward 17 of the Repatriation General Hospital, which the Government no longer considered "fit for service" due to ageing facilities.

The building was built in 1942 but workers at the Repat said some facilities were only five years old.

About 10 per cent of the building is used to support war veterans ranging from long-term patients to those returning from conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq,

Mr Snelling said a wide range of veterans' groups would be consulted to find the most suitable location for the new centre.

Full emergency departments 'symptom' of hospitals' problems

Mr Snelling said the changes were in response to federal cuts to the state's health budget and ongoing strain on metropolitan emergency departments.

He said the issues Adelaide had with full emergency departments were a "symptom of problems in other places in the hospital".

Health Minister Jack Snelling and Transforming Health clinical ambassador Professor Dorothy Keefe front the media. ( ABC News: Malcolm Sutton )

"The problem we have, is once a decision's been made that a person needs to be admitted, is getting an acute bed up in the ward," Mr Snelling said.

"Too many people presented to our EDs with life-threatening situations are delayed.

"An ambulance is called and they may need to be moved elsewhere.

"That can have significant impacts on whether they live or die."

Clinical ambassador of the Transforming Health paper, Professor Dorothy Keefe, said the proposals resulted from nine months of consultation with the industry's best.

She said currently mortality could vary by up to 50 per cent between metropolitan hospitals, accounting for 100 lives a year.

"Imagine knowing that some people die, who should live," she said.

She blamed infections and hospital travelling times, among other scenarios for the mortality rate.

The Government said services from Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre and Saint Margaret's Rehabilitation Hospital would be "integrated" into the system, with 22 extra rehab beds to be established at Modbury Hospital.

St Margaret's is expected to stay open with a "health focus into the future" but the fate of the Hampstead centre is yet to be determined.

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital is to become SA's new "home of multi-day elective surgery", with an increased focus on rehabilitation and treating patients with diabetes or obesity.

Its capacity for psychogeriatric patients would be increased from 20 to 40 beds to accommodate redirected patients from the Repat.

The new RAH would become the major multi-trauma hospital for SA and, along with Flinders and Lyell McEwin hospitals, would be be considered a "super site" for major emergencies and the priority location for responding ambulances.

Overhaul 'chaotic': Opposition Leader

Opposition Leader Steven Marshall called the overhaul chaotic and said it put patients' lives at risk.

He said sending patients with life-threatening illness to one of three "super emergency departments" would increase travel times.

"This is definitely going to cost lives," Mr Marshall said.

"We've got the worst and the second-to-worst emergency departments in the nation and the Government's response is to send more patients to those emergency departments.

"In fact, our best performing emergency department is the Noarlunga Hospital, which they plan to close."

Mr Snelling said health leaders had agreed 50 health standards that should be met in the system needed to change from about 300, in an effort to re-configure the system.

"I won't rest until I'm satisfied we don't just have pockets of excellence in our system, we have consistency of excellence," Mr Snelling said.

He said the changes would result in freeing up more beds for seriously ill people by giving them access to acute beds being occupied by long-term patients.

The changes include contracting out the management of 40 maintenance beds to the private sector.

"At any one time, there are approximately 80 to 100 patients who have been treated in hospital and are ready to be discharged but can't secure accommodation in an aged care facility or another suitable setting," Mr Snelling said.

The Government's paper outlining its health changes will be open for public submissions until February 27.