PC Position Paper re Health Workforce

The Productivity Commission has released a position paper on Australia’s Health Workforce. Further information and a copy of the paper is available here.

The Federal Government asked the Productivity Commission to undertake a research study to examine issues impacting on the health workforce including the supply of, and demand for, health workforce professionals, and to propose solutions to ensure the continued delivery of quality healthcare over the next 10 years.

The Commission notes that there are considerable pressures on Australia’s health workforce — as evidenced by shortages of supply in some professions, particularly (but not only) outside the major population centres, and a significant reliance on overseas trained professionals. They note that initiatives to boost the numbers of education and training places will be an important part of the response to both current shortages and increased future demand for health workers.

Another of the key initiatives proposed is establishment of a single national accreditation body for health professional training courses and institutions. This would mean the consolidation of separate entities such as the Australian Medical Council and the Australian Dental Council.

The ADA will be making a submission by the due date of 11 November, and members with suggested points for inclusion are welcome to forward these by 14 October 2005, via the comments option below.

Health Training Package Review

The Community Services and Health Industry Skills Council (CS&HISC) is responsible for a review of core competencies for a number of TAFE trained health occupations. Amogst these are dental assistants, dental technicians and dental prosthetists. For further information visit here. (follow the ‘Health Training Package HLT02 Review’ link under “Current Projects”). Download: September Bulletin

This review may have significant impact on training undertaken by these allied dental personnel in future years.

ADA members at both State and Federal levels are providing input into this process, but all interested members are welcome to offer further coments. If you wish to make a direct contribution you can do so via the CS&HISC online web-based feedback system - accesible at the above link.

Dental Extracts from "Health Expenditure in Australia in 2003-04"

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has just released their major annual publication on Health Expenditure in Australia 2003-04, which has received press coverage for its key message that Australia is now spending $1 in every $10 of the nation’s income on health services.

Selected extracts from this major research publication related to dental services are highlighted below. If you are interested in more dental information, do a keyword search for ‘dental’ inside the PDF after opening the file.

“Total expenditure on health goods and services, health-related services and capital formation in Australia in 2003–04 was estimated at $78.4 billion (Table 1). This was an increase of $6.1 billion over the previous year. Most of this increase between 2002–03 and 2003–04 was in six areas of expenditure (Tables A3 and A4):
· hospitals—up $1.9 billion
· medical services—up $1.0 billion
· pharmaceuticals—up $0.9 billion
· other professional services— up $0.6 billion
· high-level residential care—up $0.4 billion
· dental services—up $0.3 billion.”
Source: AIHW, Health expenditure in Australia in 2003-04, 2005:6

“In 2003–04, of the estimated $16.2 billion out–of-pocket recurrent expenditure by individuals on health care goods and services (Figure 11):
• 31.4% was spent on pharmaceuticals
– 6.4% on PBS and Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (RPBS) patient contributions
– 25.0% on other pharmaceuticals (see Glossary for a detailed definition)
• 20.1% on dental services
• 13.5% on aids and appliances
• 9.9% on medical services.”
Source: AIHW, Health expenditure in Australia in 2003-04, 2005:35

“Funding by private health insurance funds is chiefly directed at private hospital services. During 2003–04, private hospitals accounted for 48.6% of the $5.6 billion in funding provided by health insurance funds (Figure 13). Other major areas of expenditure that received funding were dental services (12.6%), administration (10.4%) and medical services (9.7%).”
Source: AIHW, Health expenditure in Australia in 2003-04, 2005:40

“Individuals contributed 68.1% of the total expenditure of $4.4 billion for dental services in 2002–03 (Table A3). For the period 1993–94 to 2002–03, real growth in expenditure on dental services was 4.0%, some 0.2 percentage points below that of real growth in total health expenditure (Table A5). For the period 1997–98 to 2002–03, however, real growth for dental services (5.7%) exceeded that for total health expenditure by 0.7 percentage points.”

Source: AIHW, Health expenditure in Australia in 2003-04, 2005:59

ARCPOH Research re Access to Dental Care

The Australian Research Centre for Population Oral Health (ARCPOH) recently produced three new research reports on oral health and access to dental care. See links to these PDF reports below.

Oral health and access to dental care - Rural and Remote Dwellers
Oral health and access to dental care - Migrants in Australia
Oral health and access to dental care - Older Adults in Australia

Welcome to the ADAVB Blog

Members who have already subscribed to the ADAVB Alert! Service might wonder why we are also offering this weblog news service.

Our aim is to fill a gap that is not addressed by the Newsletter, the Branch website or the ADAVB Alert! emails. There are numerous news events of significance to dentistry, and more narrowly to members of the ADAVB, which come to our attention, but which do not normally rate a mention in the other established communication channels. Examples of these include:

• Key administrative events on the ADAVB Calendar (e.g. subscription renewals);
• News about meetings and seminars attended by ADAVB representatives on behalf of the profession;
• Progress with projects on which the ADAVB is either coordinating or playing a contributory role;
• Information about work being undertaken on members’ behalf, which might otherwise have been “behind the scenes”;
• Release of new research reports by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (amongst others):
• Publication of discussion papers by various Government Departments; and
• Provision of other sundry news that would be out of date if left to appear in the Branch Newsletter.

What this blog will not be, is a vehicle for opinion pieces or personality focused material. As with our other communication systems, we don’t propose to waste your time. Because you can subscribe to the blog as an RSS feed, you can be alerted to changes on the Branch website, and to other key developments as they occur, but ONLY IF YOU ARE INTERESTED. If not, then it is easy to unsubscribe from the feed.

We don’t necessarily expect to update postings daily, but there will be a pretty regular stream of postings, and certainly they will occur more often than weekly. We suggest you set your RSS Feeder to poll for updates 2 or 3 times per week. Your feedback on the style and substance of the contents, along with suggestions on information you would like provided by this means, would be welcome.