Editorial

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Welcome to the first homepage edition of i2P for 2012.
In many ways it has been a slow start to the New Year because of having to deal with the “leftovers” from 2011.
One of those items for i2P was that a third-party provider to the site did not advise of a code change to the security section in our subscribe panel, creating a range of frustrated subscribers not able to get on board.
We apologise to all those potential subscribers who were unable to register with us in the second half of 2011, but if you try once more you should have no problem.

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Volume 2012 Number 1

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At Least it's a Plan

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	Staff Writer articles by this author...
Editing and Researching news and stories about global and local Pharmacy Issues

Whatever your views on health and public hospitals, you at least have to acknowledge that Tony Abbott has come up with a plan to reform the public hospital sector (see story following).
Kevin Rudd came into office with the promise that hospitals would be his main priority and that federal ownership of hospitals would occur. He has failed miserably.
The deplorable state of public hospitals is accelerating and no agency seems capable of even slowing down the spate of horror stories that bedevil the hospital system.
When systems become entangled in this type of a mess, the only way out is to destroy the existing culture and replace it with something untainted.
Will Tony Abbot's proposed reforms go deep enough to eliminate the problems, or will they just create a new set of problems at the local level?
Who knows - but someone had better give it a go before the public backlash manifests at the polling booth for the next election.

Big changes to Qld and NSW hospitals under Abbott plan

Source: DPS Guide to Aged Care
http://www.agedcareguide.com.au/news.asp?newsid=4410

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Opposition leader, Tony Abbott, has announced that the next Coalition Federal Government will give every major public hospital in New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland its own management board and will renegotiate the Health Care Agreements within six months of taking office to bring this about.

These boards would include the chair of the medical staff council and the director of nursing as well as community representatives with experience in running large companies. Boards would appoint hospital chief executive officers (CEO) and, with the CEO, manage hospital budgets.

Government would appoint boards and set hospitals’ funding levels but wouldn’t be able to cut funding when hospitals raise money from private patients or fundraising.

The plan has been criticised by the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association (AHHA) which believes that it will waste money, duplicate resources and divide the health system.

"AHHA welcomes the Opposition's input into the healthcare debate but warns against ‘easy answers’ when it comes to reforming the governance and funding of hospitals and the health system as a whole," Prue Power, AHHA executive director said.

"Tony Abbott’s proposal to ‘return’ decision-making to clinicians in a selection of hospitals through politically-appointed Boards risks entrenching the current fragmented approach to health care with hospitals becoming fiefdoms, isolated from the rest of the health system.

"Real reform to meet these ends will only occur at the local level when clinicians can develop innovative models of care across the continuum of health services. To achieve this, there are several pre-requisites that the Coalition's plan leaves untouched.

"In addition, the funding mechanisms developed must ensure that population-based planning can occur. This does not happen at the individual hospital level, rather at a higher regional level so that there is no duplication of service and ultimately to ensure the safety and quality of services provided.

“The naturally limited (though still insufficient) level of funding for public hospitals means that decisions must be made with a broader view of a region's health needs.

"The Coalition's proposal has no detail on any of these critical factors. It cannot justify applying one form of national control in only two of eight state jurisdictions. This will mean only further fragmentation of a system that is endeavouring to achieve more consistency,” she said.

"The plan will also result in untenable competition between public hospitals and likely duplication of services that will waste more money rather than save it. Hospitals will become fiefdoms and will revert to silos, with Boards legally accountable only to that hospital, not to the best health outcomes for the whole region.

"Communities and clinicians must be involved in planning and decision-making, but Government-appointed Boards will be far riskier to the long-term viability and quality of hospital care than any bureaucracy," said Ms Power.

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