Victoria gives health reform green light

18 February 2011

On Sunday 13 February, the Council of Australian Governments agreed to a revised health reform package.

State Premiers and Chief Ministers signed a new Heads of Agreement on National Health Reform, which will form the basis on a new National Health Reform Agreement and will replace the National Health and Hospitals Network Agreement.

Heads of Agreement on National Health Reform (3.4MB, pdf)
Available from the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) website.

Under the Heads of Agreement:

• States will remain managers of the public hospital system and will continue to negotiate service level agreements with health services and hospitals.
• There will be no transfer of State GST to the Commonwealth.
• The Commonwealth will increase its contribution to efficient growth funding for hospitals to 45 per cent from 1 July 2014, increasing to 50 per cent from 1 July 2017.
• The Commonwealth will guarantee that its additional funding will be no less than $16.4 billion between 2014 - 2015 and 2019 - 2020.
• States and the Commonwealth will contribute funding for health services and hospitals into a single, independent national pool, to be operational from 1 July 2012.
• The Commonwealth and States will continue to develop a national approach to activity based funding, to be introduced from 1 July 2012.
• States will continue to play a significant role in the delivery of primary health care services - there will be no transfer of primary care services to the Commonwealth.
• The Commonwealth will bring forward the establishment of more Medicare Locals and these entities will plan and support face-to-face GP services outside normal hours.
• The Commonwealth and States will work together on system wide policy and statewide planning for GP and primary health care services.

The agreement also stated that further reforms in mental health, dental health and aged care will be pursued over the coming three years.

A revised National Partnership Agreement on Improving Public Hospital Services was also agreed.

The agreement included performance targets for elective surgery and emergency departments as well as funding for new subacute beds. An Expert Panel will be established to provide advice on the appropriate implementation of these targets.

Many details still need to be worked through over the next few months for the new National Health Reform Agreement to be agreed by 1 July 2011. The Department of Health will continue to play a key role in this process.

Further information

Enquiries should be directed to healthreform@health.vic.gov.au