COAG discusses health reforms

The Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, today met with Premiers and Chief Ministers to discuss future directions for national health reform. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) met as the Australian health system faces huge pressures, including:

• An ageing population;
• A growing chronic disease burden;
• Health workforce shortages; and,
• Escalating costs of medicines and medical technology.

Because of these combined pressures, the health system has reached a tipping point. The Federal Government is using these pressures to justify the most significant health reforms since the introduction of Medicare.

It was agreed that the Prime Minister will correspond with Premiers and Chief Ministers by the end of December 2009, recommending a decision-making process on long term health and hospital reform. The Commonwealth then intends to put specific proposals to the States and Territories in the first half of 2010.

According to the Communique issued at the end of the meeting, "COAG completed another key step in the development of a national e-health system, with the signing of an agreement to provide the legislative, governance and administrative framework for national healthcare identifiers. This framework will underpin the future development of a nationally-consistent electronic health system, ensuring better medical records for patients while protecting individual privacy. COAG also signed a National Partnership Agreement on Elective Surgery, which provides significant incentives for the States and Territories (the States) to reduce substantially the number of patients waiting longer than clinically-recommended times for elective surgery".