Our health system has faced a difficult few years. We now need to embed system-wide reforms to strengthen health policy, planning and service delivery for the future.
At the same time, the healthcare system in Victoria has never been better equipped.
The health sector has seen incredible technological advances, unprecedented quality of care and increasing services and supports.
Our workforce is among the best in the world.
Victorians’ health outcomes continue to improve year-on-year.
To meet the savings requirements set out in the 2023–24 State Budget, the department has undertaken a significant transformation in late 2023 and early 2024. This includes a restructure to better align resources and efforts with the priorities in our updated strategic plan.
We also identified capability gaps that we are addressing, including through strategic recruitment, and learning and development programs.
The mental health of Victorians is still front and centre of our activities.
For three and a half years, we have been implementing the largest reform of mental health services in our state’s history.
Our mental health and wellbeing system now provides better access to services where and when Victorians need them.
Similarly, the 40,000 Victorians who access alcohol and other drug services have more community-based and residential treatment options.
We are investing in healthcare innovation, collaborating with state and federal governments. This includes prioritising prevention and early intervention.
And yet, for all these achievements and advances, we still face some of the challenges of the past, along with new challenges of the future.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a huge impact on our system and its people. Demand for services and access continues to stretch our hospitals and health services. Complex chronic conditions are affecting more Victorians than ever before.
To address some of these challenges, we launched the Victorian Health Workforce strategy in February 2024. The strategy sets out what we need to do to ensure our workforce has the right size, diversity, and distribution across the state. It will also ensure our workforce has the capabilities they need for the future.
Climate change, global competition for workers and increasingly complex conditions all affect our ability to deliver the best possible healthcare to Victorians. Globally, the impacts of climate change remain a dual concern. At one level, we are more susceptible to extreme weather events and emergencies that will have immediate health impacts. At another, the health sector is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Some of these forces are out of our control. But for those we can influence, we are acting and will continue to act to achieve better outcomes, more inclusion and increased community empowerment.
Emergency departments and ambulance services remain the first port-of-call for many Victorians who do not need that level of care but have nowhere else to go. We need to reduce the load on our emergency services by ensuring people can access the right care in the right place at the right time. This work has commenced with the opening of 29 Priority Primary Care Centres across the state that provide care for people with conditions that require urgent attention but not an emergency response.
We know there is health inequity and a lack of cultural safety for many of Victoria’s First Peoples. There are unacceptable disparities in health access and outcomes between Aboriginal Victorians and non-Aboriginal Victorians.
To close this gap, we will transfer decision-making about Aboriginal health and wellbeing to Aboriginal people.
We must strengthen the Aboriginal community-controlled sector to further advance self-determination in healthcare.
We must also build a mainstream sector that is free from discrimination, is culturally safe, and meets the specific needs of Aboriginal people.
Women in Victoria have one of the highest life expectancies in the world. But they still receive care in a system designed by men for men.
For too long, women’s pain has been missed and dismissed. We are now listening to women’s experiences and paying attention to their needs. We are also expanding access to women’s health services and boosting our research and data collection.
To bridge the gap in women's healthcare, the department is leading the delivery of a program of work with increased budget investments to change the way women's health issues are diagnosed, understood, and treated.
We also know that negative health outcomes in childhood can have serious implications for a person’s entire life. In disadvantaged communities, we see a disproportionate number of children with serious health concerns. Tragically, some children’s health is affected because they are neglected, abused, or traumatised.
These are systemic issues that require a coordinated approach across the entire spectrum of Victoria’s support systems. This will help us protect Victorian children and give them every opportunity to thrive.
At the other end of the lifespan, there are now more than one million Victorians aged over 65 years. We need to ensure that older Victorians are respected and honoured when they seek healthcare and in all aspects of their lives.
In addition, our rural and regional communities face access challenges, workforce shortages and poorer health than their metropolitan counterparts.
Multicultural communities and refugees and asylum seekers also experience poorer health and wellbeing outcomes than the broader Victorian population.
These disparities in outcomes extend to the 17% of Victorians with disability. They face systemic barriers, including in relation to communication and mobility, as well as physical and psychosocial support needs. We can and must improve the system for these Victorians.
Just over one in 20 adult Victorians openly identifies as being LGBTIQA+. They face high levels of discrimination, stigma, and exclusion. This leads to poorer health, economic, social, and mental health outcomes than other Victorians.
The only acceptable scenario for Victoria is that there is no distinction among people who are or are not LGBTIQA+. Healthcare does not discriminate.
There is still much we can and want to do to make sure all Victorians have equitable access to the healthcare they need.
This is the context for our strategic plan.
This plan recognises the challenges, capitalises on innovation, and delivers a path forward that will move us closer to our vision of Victorians being the healthiest people in the world.
Reviewed 29 August 2024