Page 181 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 14 February 2018
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it easier for patients to navigate primary health care in the community as well as care in the hospital and everything in between.
Each centre will have a centre plan, speciality service plans and patient and family focused models of care. These plans will outline how health care will be delivered through a collaborative, coordinated approach. This new evidence-based approach operates in the interests of patients, first and foremost, making sure they receive care that meets their needs.
As members would be aware, the territory-wide health services planning work has a new advisory group which was established to contribute to finalising the framework and the speciality services planning work currently underway. The advisory group is an important forum for health stakeholders, community organisations and consumers to provide advice so that we can establish the clinical centres and associated plans. I was delighted to attend and open the first meeting of the advisory group earlier this month.
Members have heard me speak in this place on our achievements in preventive health, including through our programs focusing on active living and healthy eating, immunisation, as well as the recent $4 million commitment specifically for preventive health work, which includes developing a preventive health strategy. Investing in prevention activities to prolong and increase our wellbeing cannot be underestimated, especially given their impact on reducing the burden of chronic disease, demand on the health system and of course an individual’s quality of life. I have already mentioned our lowest rate of childhood obesity, which make it clear that our plans and programs to improve health in our community through prevention programs are working. We want to build on this.
This Friday I will open the CBR Innovation Network’s active healthy Canberra event, to continue our journey to position Canberra as a centre of excellence for preventive health. We will bring together organisations to identify opportunities that can benefit our city in new ways.
We have an opportunity here in Canberra to show the world that we can be more innovative and collaborative in our approach to preventive health care. This builds on significant work that has led the nation on preventive health, including the ground-breaking towards zero growth policy and the healthy weight initiative. It also complements work across my portfolios, especially transport, in an effort to build an integrated public transport system and increase walking and cycling, as well as working with our higher education institutions to encourage research and innovation in preventive health.
As I announced yesterday as part of the budget mid-year review, the government is boosting funding for elective surgery. We are investing an extra $6.3 million to provide for extra surgery, helping patients access treatment within recommended time frames. Each year Health completes more elective surgeries, with 12,826 patients receiving elective surgery in 2016-17, over the previous target. We are meeting our targets for the number of procedures performed each year, which demonstrates that
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