AAP General News (Australia)
08-02-2011
FED:Public will hold hospitals to account: PM
By Julian Drape
CANBERRA, Aug 2 AAP - The Gillard government says the public will be responsible for
holding poor-performing hospitals to account if they don't meet new targets for elective
surgery and emergency treatment.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Tuesday announced all states and territories had finally
signed up to Labor's national health reform agreement.
Former Labor leader Kevin Rudd promised before the 2007 election to mend the ailing
health system by mid-2009 to take over the funding of Australia's public hospitals.
However, the final deal doesn't include such a dramatic overhaul, with the states remaining
system managers.
Tuesday's agreement also dumps Mr Rudd's "guarantee" that elective surgery patients
will be treated on time or get free treatment in a private hospital. Now there's simply
a "target" that 100 per cent of people be treated on time.
Further, only 90 per cent of emergency department patients now will have to be admitted,
referred or discharged within four hours, down from the previous 95 per cent target.
But Ms Gillard says the changes to the February COAG agreement were made on the advice
of an expert panel, which argued the original guarantee and target could have "perverse
and unforeseen consequences".
Ms Gillard said under the previous elective surgery guarantee, public hospitals would
have been "scrambling" to find a private bed on a case-by-case basis.
Now they'd be able to enter long-term contracts with nearby private hospitals to help
them with their caseload, she said.
There were also instances where it made sense to monitor people in emergency departments
for more than four hours.
"This agreement delivers the most fundamental change to health care in this country
since Medicare," Ms Gillard said of the deal, which will deliver $19.8 billion in new
funding by 2020.
"This is signed. This is done and it's agreed to by all states and territories."
The prime minister said people would hold hospitals to account if they didn't meet
the elective and emergency targets.
"People will be able to transparently see who is not meeting targets and demand that
it be addressed," she said.
Hospitals also will be paid bonus payments if they reach their targets.
But, in a win for the states, much of that funding will be delivered as "facilitation"
payments before the new targets come into effect in 2015.
On the elective surgery front, $450 million of the $650 million on offer will be available
as facilitation funding.
When it comes to emergency departments, there will be $300 million worth of facilitation
funding and just $200 million in bonus payments.
Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the accountability and transparency measures would
be the biggest drivers of change.
But she told reporters in Canberra that "ultimately the penalty is whether or not the
state gets its reward payment".
Acting Opposition Leader Julie Bishop said Ms Gillard had capitulated to the states
and territories and handed them a blank cheque when it came to health reform.
"This is the third time in 18 months that Labor has announced historic reform," she
told reporters in Sydney.
"Yet what we saw today is light years away from what Kevin Rudd originally promised
and what Julia Gillard promised last year."
Australia's health ministers in June agreed to accept the federal government's proposed
National Health Performance Authority after the commonwealth pledged that underperforming
hospitals would be given 45 days before being outed publicly.
Performance data will be published on the MyHospitals website.
AAP jcd/rl/it/jjs
KEYWORD: HOSPITALS 2ND UPDATE
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