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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 9 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2719 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

The Australian Health Ministers Conference was held the next day and discussed a number of specific health issues of particular relevance to the ACT. The national public health partnership is linked to the COAG reforms, and the Ministers agreed that there is a need to have a national approach to public health and to develop a national policy and action plan for public health in Australia. The concept of a national public health partnership has evolved, which is modelled on the national health information agreement. It recognises both the different roles of key players in public health and the need for collaboration between them to achieve real gains in public health.

The partnership, between the Commonwealth, States, Territories, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the National Health and Medical Research Council, will set out a vision for public health in Australia; clarify roles and responsibilities; establish key principles to guide public health policy and practice; establish key result areas; and incorporate a work program overseen by a management group. The partnership represents an opportunity for the ACT to participate in the development of public health in Australia. Health Ministers decided that the proposal should be developed under the guidance of the working group of chief executives established to progress COAG reforms. The Commonwealth's intention of conducting formal consultations regarding the national public health partnership was supported by Ministers.

National health goals and targets are the national framework for the monitoring of health outcomes of the Australian population. National health priority areas have been identified as injury prevention, mental health, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. As the Federal Government's health throughout life program has identified diabetes as a national priority, the conference decided to include this as one of these priority areas. In the ACT, national health goals and targets is complemented by the ACT health goals and targets to the year 2000. Together, these documents set the priority health areas for the ACT community.

In 1995, the Australian Health Ministers Advisory Council established the Better Health Outcomes Overseeing Committee to guide the development of approaches to improve health outcomes, both in relation to achievement of national health goals and targets and through financial and other incentives or disincentives. This committee has been requested by the council to review the process of the national health goals and targets to make them more focused and to consider other areas of reporting. A need was identified to establish principles for reporting on priority areas of the national health goals and targets, including reporting on priority areas every two years; limiting the numbers of priority indicators; each State and Territory developing its own targets; and the priorities of States to adopt indicators consistent with national priorities. These reporting principles will develop the national health goals and targets report, the first of these to be presented to the Health Ministers Conference later in 1996.

The report of the task force on quality in Australian health care was received by the Conference. The task force was established in June 1995 and was charged with looking at ways to reduce adverse events occurring during health care management. The report recommends system-wide changes which focus on consumers and involve the whole health care system, including managers and administrators, and emphasises the need for

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