Public Hospitals
Statements of Priorities 2004-05

In August 2003 The Victorian Public Hospital Governance Reform Panel Report made 44 recommendations on a range of governance issues. Among the recommendations, the Panel suggested that an annual Statement of Priorities with each public health service be developed to outline performance expectations for each financial year, replacing the previous contractual documents called Health Service Agreements.

The Government accepted the broad thrust of the recommendations, and in July 2004, the Health Services Act 1988 was amended to include sections 65ZFA and 65ZFB that mandate that each public health service have a Statement of Priorities, and outline the requirements to fulfil the requirements under legislation.

The new Statement of Priorities documents are relational, not contractual documents, and are designed to clarify expectations regarding key deliverables and expectations, and set out the measures to be used to assess performance. They are high-level active management tools that distil highly complex budgetary, financial, service and activity arrangements into a small number of key performance indicators.

Statement of Priorities were negotiated between the public health services and the department over a period of several months prior to their signature on 1 October 2004.

Readers are strongly advised to contact the relevant Chief Executive Officers, who will be able to give the appropriate context and background to decisions, targets and objectives made each financial year.

All files below are in PDF format (Download Help)

Metropolitan Health Services

Austin Health (270KB)

Bayside Health (311KB)*

Calvary Health Care Bethlehem (172KB)

Eastern Health (316KB)*

Melbourne Health (273KB)*

Mercy Public Hospitals Inc (225KB)

Northern Health (273KB)*

Peninsular Health (267KB)

Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (209KB)

Royal Children's Hospital (232KB)*

Royal Victorian Eye & Ear Hospital (214KB)

Royal Women's Hospital (211KB)

Southern Health (262KB)*

St Vincent's Health (252KB)

Western Health (256KB)*

Rural Health Services

Ballarat Health Services (100KB)

Barwon Health (196KB)

Bendigo Health (136KB)

Goulburn Valley Health (99KB)

Latrobe Regional Hospital (99KB)

* Seven metropolitan health services have been identified as requiring financial recovery plans that will enable these health services to work towards balanced budgets. Financial recovery plans incorporate initiatives both to increase revenues and to improve efficiencies and economics of scale being identified which result in reduction in costs whilst still maintaining full levels of hospital services.