National Health & Hospitals Reform Commission (Bennett)
A Healthier Future for All Australians - Interim Report December 2008
National Health and Hospital Reform Commission
(Dr Christine Bennett)
Final Report
Overview
The National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission was appointed in February 2008. The title of our Interim Report – A Healthier Future for All Australians – reflects the task we have been given: to report on long-term reform for the Australian health care system. Our terms of reference clearly highlight the context for reform:
Australia’s health system is in need of reform to meet a range of long-term challenges, including access to services, the growing burden of chronic disease, population ageing, costs and inefficiencies generated by blame and cost shifting, and the escalating costs of new health technologies.
Australia is not alone in tackling health system reform; most nations are facing similar challenges. While we agree that significant changes are needed to meet these challenges, we also recognise that our health system has many strengths upon which we can build. We are fortunate in having a universal health care system – with publicly-funded access to medical care, public hospitals and pharmaceuticals – a mix of public and private financing and health care provision, and a highly skilled and dedicated health workforce.
Building on these strengths, in our Interim Report we set out directions and proposals for reform of our health care system arising from our consultations and deliberations to date. This overview highlights our key reform directions, with a full list at the end of the overview.
We have identified four themes which encapsulate our directions for reform:
• Taking responsibility: individual and collective action to build good health and wellbeing – by people, families, communities, health professionals, employers and governments;
• Connecting care: comprehensive care for people over their lifetime;
• Facing inequities: recognise and tackle the causes and impacts of health inequities; and
• Driving quality performance: better use of people, resources, and evolving knowledge.
The overview is organised around these themes, providing a framework for our messages of reform. But as will become clear in the telling, while the themes provide an organising framework for our areas of health care reform, the themes apply across the health reform areas. Figure 1 gives a ‘map’ of the overview and the areas discussed.
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