Premier Colin Barnett has expressed caution over the federal government's sweeping health reforms, saying his government was still wary after losing big in last week's goods and services tax revenue carve-up.
Premier Colin Barnett has expressed caution over the federal government's sweeping health reforms, saying his government was still wary after losing big in last week's goods and services tax revenue carve-up.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today unveiled a major overhaul to the nation's health system that will take funding control away from the states to the federal government.
Under the reforms, the federal government plans to take a 60 per cent funding responsibility for public hospitals, up from the current 35 per cent.
Mr Rudd said the government plans to fund this by taking one-third of the GST revenue from the states and investing it in a National Health and Hospitals Network that will take care of distributing funds.
He added that the health system will be run locally by establishing the Local Hospital Network, which the government will pay directly instead of handing over block funding grants to the states.
The network will be run by health and financial professionals and be responsible for running local hospitals.
Mr Barnett said if the federal government goes ahead with the plan, it will take away some $14 billion from states and territories to fund the health overhaul.
He said the state government is willing to consider a national pool of funds however he is not convinced that state funds should be used to achieve a federal government objective.
"We're very careful to protect our interest financially in this; Western Australia has already been done over in the last few days in our share of GST revenue," Mr Barnett said.
"Now the commonwealth is proposing to take one-third of GST revenues; that amounts to about $14 billion a year off the states to fund commonwealth participation in hospitals.
"While we will consider the pooling proposal, we will only do so if we have a true and effective say in policy issues right across health."
Last week, the federal government's Grants Commission review proposed that WA's share of GST revenue should be decreased from 7.1 per cent to 8.1 per cent, or $223 million, in the 2011 financial year.
The federal government is also proposing to take responsibility for all GP and primary health care services.
Mr Barnett said while he saw merit in some of the proposed changes, he did not want to see WA's health system suffer because of mistakes made in New South Wales and Queensland.
"We are not simply going to give up our responsibilities or ownership for our public hospitals or give up a third of GST and not maintain an effective voice and say in the running of our public hospitals," he said.
"We have made a lot of decisions on the health system already; for us to back out and hand over control to Canberra is not acceptable."
The proposed changes will be discussed at the next Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting in April.
Should the state and territory leaders not agree on the reforms at that meeting, Mr Rudd said the proposed changes will be taken to the next federal election, expected to take place this year.
The announcement is below:
The Rudd Government today announced major structural reforms to Australia's health and hospital system.
The Government will deliver better health services and better hospitals by establishing a National Health and Hospitals Network.
This new national network will be funded nationally and run locally.
These reforms represent the biggest changes to Australia's health and hospital system since the introduction of Medicare, and one of the most significant reforms to the federation in its history.
- A National Network: to bring together eight disparate State run systems with one set of tough national standards to drive and deliver better hospital services.
- Funded nationally: by taking the dominant funding role in the entire public hospital system the Australian Government will end the blame game, eliminate waste and shoulder the burden of funding to meet rapidly rising health costs.
- Run locally: through Local Hospital Networks bringing together small groups of hospitals, where local professionals with local knowledge are given the necessary powers to deliver hospital services to their community.
The Commonwealth will achieve these changes through the following actions:
- Taking 60 per cent of funding responsibility for public hospitals by investing one third of GST revenue - currently paid to the states and territories - directly in health and hospitals;
- Taking over responsibility for all GP and primary health care services;
- Establishing Local Hospital Networks run by health and financial professionals to be responsible for running their local hospitals, rather than central bureaucracies;
- Paying Local Hospital Networks directly for each hospital service they deliver, rather than just handing over block funding grants to the states; and
- Bringing fragmented health and hospital services together under a single National Health and Hospitals Network, through strong transparent national reporting.
These reforms will be put to the states and territories at the COAG meeting to be held in Canberra on 11 April.
If the states and territories will not agree to these reforms, we will take this reform plan to the people at the next election - along with a referendum by or at that same election to give the Australian Government all the power it needs to reform the health system.
The new National Health and Hospitals Network will end blame shifting and cost shifting, and provide national leadership on health and hospitals with increased local control.
Sweeping changes to the way hospitals are funded and run will also lead to less waste and duplication and a health system which is sustainable into the future.
On the basis of these reforms, over the coming weeks and months, the Government will announce critical additional investments to:
- train more doctors and nurses;
- increase the availability of hospital beds;
- improve GP services; and
- introduce personally-controlled electronic health records.
The establishment of the National Health and Hospitals Network builds on record investments in health and hospitals made by the Rudd Government over the last two years.
