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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (23 May) . . Page.. 1615 ..

MR MOORE (Minister for Health and Community Care) (5.01): For the information of members, I present the following paper:

I move:

The government's response indicates agreement or partial agreement with 13 of the 18 recommendations contained in the committee's report. These relate to the provision of health services, the transparency of reporting and access to information.

A number of the recommendations sought the provision of additional funding for the Health and Community Care portfolio. I am pleased to announce that the government has agreed to increase growth funding by $3 million over and above the significant growth funding already factored into the draft 2000-01 budget. The draft 2000-01 budget already provided for growth moneys in excess of $47 million over the budget in forward years. This level of funding increases for Health and Community Care is without parallel in any ACT budget since self-government.

The government also agrees to provide increases to health-specific purpose payments. This has already occurred in relation to the Australian health care agreement, with a further $567,000 in additional funding being passed on to the Department of Health and Community Care in this budget. It is intended that there be increased community involvement in the movement of services to the non-acute sector and it has agreed, in principle, to increase public accessibility to acute care and mental health reporting as the government is already committed to increasing the level of information being made available.

The government considers that the budget papers already contain adequate clarity with regard to mental health services and provide full disclosure of the funding received from the Commonwealth for specific purposes. It is agreed that government departments should play an active role in increasing accessibility to the draft budget papers, but it is doubted that a single community contact point would be as effective as the current arrangements involving contact officers between the funded community organisation and departmental officers.

The government intends to provide the community with the opportunity to discuss the privacy issues surrounding the development of a patient identifier number and health information network initiatives and is currently arranging a discussion forum through the ACT Health Care Consumers Association and ACTCOSS.

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