Less Waiting, More Timely Hospital Services For All Australians

• Less Waiting, More Timely Hospital Services For All Australians (PDF 48 KB)

Health care where and when it is needed
Expert advice guides the reduced waiting times for elective surgery and in emergency departments
Less waiting in Emergency Departments
Less waiting for Elective Surgery
More hospital beds where they are needed most
More doctors and nurses
More information on the performance of hospitals and other health services
Strengthened preventive and primary health care, to keep people well and out of hospital
More health services for local communities
Better access to general practitioners after hours
Ensuring local health services meet the needs of their communities

Health care where and when it is needed

The Commonwealth Government is committed to making sure that all Australians can get the health care they need, where and when they need it.

In partnership with the states and territories, the Commonwealth Government is introducing new targets that will help to shorten the wait in emergency departments and improve waiting times for elective surgery. The Government is also ensuring that Australians can access information about their local hospital, and delivering more hospital beds, more doctors and more nurses.

Expert advice guides the reduced waiting times for elective surgery and in emergency departments

Many public patients are waiting too long to have elective surgery and to be treated in emergency departments. The Commonwealth is providing the states and territories with additional funding to improve services and to introduce clear national targets and standards.

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreed in February to establish a panel of experts including clinicians to review the emergency department and elective surgery targets in order to ensure that they provided sufficient protection for patient safety and welfare. COAG has listened to this expert advice and has introduced more effective, clinically appropriate and safer targets to help achieve better public hospital services for all Australians.

Less waiting in Emergency Departments

Following the Expert Panel’s review, the National Emergency Access Target for patients admitted, referred or discharged from emergency departments within four hours will be changed from 95% (where clinically appropriate) to 90% for all ED patients across all triage categories:

• This simplifies the National Emergency Access Target, by removing complex exclusions and loopholes.
• The remaining 10 per cent reflects patients for whom it is clinically appropriate to remain in emergency departments longer than four hours (for example, where a longer period of observation is appropriate).
• Commencing from 2012, this target will be phased in over four years with annual interim targets across all triage categories to achieve the target by 2015.
• The staged introduction will allow Local Hospital Networks and states and territories to progressively adapt to the National Emergency Access Target.

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Less waiting for Elective Surgery

Similarly, the National Elective Surgery Target will replace the previously agreed elective surgery target and National Access Guarantee:

• Elective surgery targets, for those to be treated within clinically recommended times will be raised from 95% to 100% - by 2015.
• The implementation timeframe will be extended by one year to 2016 in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory to support these smaller states in meeting the targets.
• Elective surgery reward funding will be split into two parts – one will increase the proportion of patients treated within clinically recommended times up to the 100 per cent target; the other will reduce the overdue wait times with a particular focus on those patients who have been waiting the longest.
• To facilitate state and territory governments meeting these emergency department and elective surgery targets, the Commonwealth Government has brought forward a proportion of its reward payments as facilitation payments. The funding available to the states and territories remains $1.8 billion over eight years (2009-10 to 2016-17).

More hospital beds where they are needed most

To reduce the pressure on public hospitals, the Commonwealth Government is also investing $1.6 billion to deliver 1,316 new sub-acute beds (which includes ‘bed’ equivalents for services provided in the community) nationally.

Sub-acute beds reduce the pressure on public hospitals by providing patients more appropriate care, improving their health outcomes and quality of life.

The Commonwealth Government’s investment will support more palliative, rehabilitative and geriatric beds, as well as more mental health sub-acute beds.

These beds will be in a range of settings, including in hospitals or outside, such as in residential and community-based settings.

More doctors and nurses

The Commonwealth Government is investing $1.2 billion over the four years from 2010–11 to 2013–14 to train more GPs and specialists, nurses working in general practice and rural areas, and allied health professionals and students working or training in rural areas.

To achieve this, the Commonwealth Government will deliver:

• locum support to enable up to 7,500 rural nurses and 1,000 rural allied health workers over the next decade to take leave to access professional development activities to keep their skills up to date ($34 million over the first four years).
• 5,500 new GPs or GPs undergoing training over the next decade.
• 975 places each year for junior doctors to experience a career in general practice during their postgraduate training period.
• 680 more specialist doctors over the next decade.
• 1,000 extra clinical placement scholarships for allied health students over the next decade.

The Government will also provide an additional $390 million through the Practice Nurse Incentive Program (PNIP), as well as redirecting current funding for practice nurses from the Practice Incentives Program (PIP) Practice Nurse Incentive and six Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) practice nurse items.

The Practice Nurse Incentive Program commences on 1 January 2012 and will support an expanded and enhanced role for practice nurses by providing funding to general practices through a single, consolidated and streamlined financing arrangement.

More information on the performance of hospitals and other health services

Australians will be able to access transparent and nationally comparable performance data and information on their local hospitals and health services — including emergency department and elective surgery waiting times and reporting of adverse events and hospital acquired infections.

The MyHospitals website, launched on 10 December 2010, provides increased transparency on hospitals’ performance by making it possible to compare the performance of individual hospitals against the national average. The website currently provides information on current emergency department and elective surgery waiting times, as well as other information about the services hospitals provide. This is the first time nationally consistent hospital level performance information has been published. The MyHospitals site will be developed further over time and is expected to publish hospital performance information produced by the National Health Performance Authority.

Under National Health Reform, the National Health Performance Authority will develop and produce Hospital Performance Reports and Healthy Communities Reports (on primary health care performance) which will help Australians make more informed choices about their health services and help ensure the standard of care patients receive continues to improve. The framework will be used to improve performance across hospital, GP and primary health care services.

Over time, information provided on the MyHospitals website will be enhanced and expanded and will include even more information on hospitals’ performance on safety and quality measures.

These increased transparency measures will allow for ready identification of high-performing hospitals, support sharing of innovative practices across Local Hospital Networks and help to create continuous improvement within the hospital system.
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Strengthened preventive and primary health care, to keep people well and out of hospital

The Commonwealth Government is also committed to bolstering preventive health efforts and primary health care to keep people well and out of hospital.

A stronger primary health care system will be supported by joint planning with states and territories and Medicare Locals to improve the delivery of primary health care in the local community.

More health services for local communities

The Commonwealth Government is making a significant investment in the GP Super Clinics program and has committed $528 million to build 64 GP Super Clinics around Australia and is also funding around 425 upgrades to existing general practices, primary care and community health services and Aboriginal Medical Services. 31 GP Super Clinics are now either open, providing early services or under construction.

GP Super Clinics put multiple health care services under one roof, helping people to more easily access health care, when and where they need it, from a range of providers such as general practitioners, podiatrists, physiotherapists, psychologists and diabetes educators. By focusing on prevention and better management of chronic diseases, GP Super Clinics will assist people to stay healthy and out of hospital.

Better access to general practitioners after hours

Since 1 July this year, the after hours GP helpline has been providing reassurance and practical medical advice to people who have an urgent health concern after hours, and cannot access their regular GP. Available through healthdirect Australia by calling 1800 022 222, the helpline operates at night, on the weekend and on public holidays.

The helpline is currently available in New South Wales, Western Australia, South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. People living in Tasmania can continue to access GP telephone advice through GP Assist on 1300 780 011.

The service will be available to people living in Queensland from early 2012 through 13HEALTH.

People living in Victoria can continue to access Nurse On Call for after hours health information and advice from nurses.

Ensuring local health services meet the needs of their communities

To make sure health services meet the needs of their communities, the Commonwealth Government is reshaping health services to be more locally focused. Medicare Locals are being established to support integrated and coordinated primary health care services (such as general practices, community health centres and allied health services) to keep people well and out of hospital.

Medicare Locals will be responsible for developing strategies to meet the overall primary health care needs of their communities.

They will ensure the primary health care services needed by their communities work effectively for patients, through developing collaborative arrangements between health service providers in their area. They will also plan and support local after hours face-to-face GP services.

Medicare Locals are already being established and will be established throughout Australia by July 2012.

Primary health care performance will be monitored through Healthy Communities Reports, which will be developed and produced by the National Health Performance Authority.

These reports will shine a light on areas in need of further health care support across Australia.
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