Health Minister Sussan Ley has written to her state and territory counterparts proposing fresh talks on public hospital funding, more than a year after the Abbott government slashed billions of dollars in future funding promised by Labor.
Having dumped the GP co-payment, finalised drug and pharmacy reforms, and initiated a Medicare probe and primary care review she described as the “cornerstone of future policy development,” the minister sought last week to engage the states in hospital talks.
Asked whether that meant 2016 would be an implementation year for the reforms arising from several reviews, or simply the year the Coalition asked voters to support new health policies, Ms Ley said she did not intend to stand still in the portfolio.
“I wrote to state ministers about having a discussion to inform us with the federation white paper and how we might best restructure a new agreement between the commonwealth and the states when it comes to hospital funding,” she said. “So this is not in a holding pattern at all, this is proceeding quite quickly.”
Her comments came after more than a year of criticism from the states and other health stakeholders over planned changes to hospital growth funding from 2017-18, which Queensland Health Minister Cameron Dick at the weekend said would remove the equivalent of 8337 jobs for clinicians in the state by 2024-25.
Tony Abbott and state and territory leaders will discuss health funding at a special retreat next month, after the Council of Australian Governments meeting agreed on the need for health and education funding arrangements to be sustainable.
The federal government is also considering broader aspects of the federation and a likely realignment of service delivery and funding responsibilities over a longer timeframe.
Source: The Australian