Page 984 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 29 March 2011
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issue has been raised. But I am more supportive of the process which New South Wales put forward, which was actually about skill sets, rather than actually specifying particular professions, which I think is a much better way to go.
I would like to comment on the Medicare locals. I understand that the Australian government still intends to have them established by 1 July and the Greens are looking forward to seeing how the ACT’s version will develop. If governments are really to make a difference to the health status of the ACT people, we must tackle the inequities within our health system and assist those people who are of a lower income to access primary health care in a timely way when it is needed and encourage them to live healthy lifestyles. Medicare locals have the potential to play a bigger role than the local hospital networks in improving the health status of the ACT people and I do look forward to their development.
Finally, other sections of the bill propose amendments to what quality assurance committees have to report on and what clinical practice committees share information about. My office has spoken with the Health Services Commissioner, the AMA, the ANF and the Health Care Consumers Association. All parties have indicated support for the changes as they are essentially a rewording to better meet what is already accepted as better practice than is currently occurring.
I would just note too that on all aspects of the bill we did go out for input from a wide variety of groups, as I have noted, which included the Health Care Consumers Association, the AMA and the ANF. We received acknowledgement from all groups, but only received feedback from the Health Care Consumers Association and the ANF on that particular bill.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Health and Minister for Industrial Relations) (4.45): I thank members for their support for this bill today. As I indicated to the Assembly in February, this bill will provide for two unrelated matters: firstly, amendments to parts 4 and 5 of the Health Act which governs how clinical privileges committees and quality assurance committees exercise their powers and perform their functions, and also to establish a legislative basis for the local hospital network for the ACT.
The object of amendments to parts 4 and 5 of the act is to clarify the current legislation in order to give better effect to the intention of the legislation. The amendments seek to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and quality of health services in the ACT. The amendments do not propose policy changes or any new direction of the government in regard to the governance of quality assurance committees and clinical privileges committees. The objectives of the amendments are to establish the legislative basis for the LHN for the ACT, to set out a definition of the ACT LHN, local hospital network, to establish a local hospital network council, including providing a process for the appointment of members to the local hospital network council, its composition and its general role and function.
In relation to the amendments around the clinical privileges committee and the quality assurance committees, part 4 of the Health Act governs how approved quality assurance committees exercise their powers and perform their functions, and
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