Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. How will the government’s health reform plan drive efficiency and eliminate waste in the health system? Will there be any impact on regional and rural hospitals as a result of the plan?

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Laming interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Bowman is warned! In warning him, I would ask that somebody explain to him what looms over him if he continues to interject at every possible occasion.

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Deakin for his question on health. I must say it comes as some surprise that not a single member opposite has asked a question on health, when the Prime Minister announced last week the biggest change to our health system since the introduction of Medicare more than three decades ago. The National Health and Hospitals Network is going to change the way the Commonwealth funds hospitals. We will be funding local hospitals directly, through the local hospital networks, for each service that they provide. Gone are the days when the Commonwealth would simply hand over a blank cheque—something that the member opposite used to do, or he used to pull a few zeroes off the end of it first before he handed his cheque over—hoping that the funding would end up at the front line, where it is needed.

With our hospitals network, there will be funding nationally but there will be control and running of these services locally. Funding hospitals on this basis will make sure that health funding ends up where the patients are, so it is particularly appropriate that the member for Deakin would ask this question, representing our growing suburbs, where there has not always been the hospital infrastructure that is needed. This is a way of directing funding to where the patients will be. It will not be directed through a centralised bureaucracy that might farm the money off elsewhere.

The health reform commission estimated that the introduction of activity based funding alone—just that change—could lead to savings of between $500 million and $1.3 billion every year. This equates to between 1,300 and 3,150 hospital beds a year. That is at a minimum. That is the equivalent of adding the capacity of four Sunshine Hospitals—where the Prime Minister and I, with the member for Maribyrnong, visited on the weekend. Through this system, we will be able to see why, for example, Victoria’s hospital costs are lower than other states’ costs and apply any lessons learned across the whole health system.

The price for each service is going to be determined by an independent umpire operating at arm’s length from the government. It will draw on expert advice and will, of course, strike an appropriate balance between reasonable access, clinical safety and efficiency. Very importantly—because we understand that the cost of delivering services varies significantly around the country, especially in rural and regional areas—country prices will not be set with city assumptions. There will be a national efficient price with special loadings for rural service delivery.

I would like to focus a little bit on this very important change to the system. I have noticed, for example, that the National Party is already out—desperately looking for relevance—pretending that this is going to close country hospitals across the country, when in fact the establishment of local hospital networks is a way to reinforce local autonomy for hospital decision making.

I would like to tell you that we have received some support from within this parliament for the reforms. I would like to read to you just a short excerpt from the member for Lyne’s press release. The member for Lyne and his local doctors made a very great impression on the Prime Minister at Port Macquarie, because the Prime Minister has been referring to them ever since. The member for Lyne said in his press release:

The Prime Minister’s announcements this week very much reflect the advice of doctors, nurses and other health professionals at that meeting and are therefore very much welcome on the mid-North Coast.

He went on:

By placing an emphasis on efficiencies at local hospital network level, these reforms are a slam dunk for our region and deserve the parliament’s support.

Hear, hear. But we have also had support from other quarters within the parliament. I would like to read you another endorsement of this idea:

For instance you could fund the public hospital system on a case mix basis. That would force them to focus on services rather than on global budgets and it would mean that you would be getting what you paid for in a way the Commonwealth can’t be sure now.

…            …            …

I think if we focus on funding services, rather than just shovel the enormous pot of money into the State’s coffers, we’re more likely to get good services delivered to patients.

I wonder who said that? I am happy to run a TAB if anybody wants to guess who might have said that. Of course it was the Leader of the Opposition, back in the good old days when he was the health minister—at a time when he actually thought about health, even if he actually never did anything to reform the system. It might have been a reflective moment, on The 7.30 Report in 2007, but his words are very clear:

… if we focus on funding services … we’re more likely to get good services delivered to patients.

Now, Mr Abbott, it is time for you to decide if you can still stick by those words and support this plan in the nation’s interests.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I remind members that they must refer to members by their parliamentary titles.