Page 1522 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 8 May 2018
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decision to separate ACT Health is the most significant change in the ACT health system in many years.
I want to ensure that the ACT public health system is best positioned to plan for and deliver services to our community now and into the future. We know that clinically and medically Canberrans can expect to receive some of the best care in the country. However, the directorate as an organisation has expanded significantly in recent years and we have seen national reforms drive significant structural change in every jurisdiction. The ACT remains the only jurisdiction in Australia to still operate as one single organisation. With a new hospital opening soon, the time is right for the ACT to also make this change to benefit from structural, administrative, and governance change to ensure that as Canberra continues to grow we deliver quality services into the future.
While acknowledging that there are a variety of approaches across Australia depending on location and size, separating ACT Health into two distinct organisations—one focused on clinical and medical service delivery and the other on health system management strategic policy and planning support functions—will bring us in to line with other jurisdictions and modernise ACT Health’s organisational and governance structure.
The healthcare environment has changed dramatically in the last 25 years and we must continue to adapt with it. While the opposition think we are still a small town managing a health system and servicing a small town population, in reality, the ACT’s population has both grown and changed profile. The ACT serves as a vital regional health hub operating the only tertiary hospital between Sydney and Melbourne. People are living longer, often with more than one disease or chronic condition and. as a result, require more and increasingly complex care support services. There are more New South Wales residents also accessing our services, and many of these residents attend ACT health services not for routine health issues but for more complex health matters. Our partnerships with non-government providers have increased, as has our funding of community-based health services. We have responded to the ever-changing landscape of commonwealth health funding reform as the commonwealth continually seek for states and territories to do more with less.
Canberrans need a patient-centric health system that is guided by the principles of effectiveness, accountability, transparency, professionalism and administrative excellence. It was this combination of issues that led me to consider whether the overarching administrative and governance frameworks for the largest ACT directorate—a directorate that never stops, with the largest workforce and budget allocation in the ACT—was still the right structure. I concluded that it was not, and the separation of the Health Directorate into two distinct organisations will enable one to have a clear focus on effectiveness of clinical operations, enabling the Health Directorate to undertake core policy, strategy and system management functions.
I expect the transition will be seamless for Canberrans accessing our health services, and I would like to also assure the Assembly that ACT Health staff will have the opportunity to be involved in the development of the new organisations. This is the message I gave when I joined the new interim director-general at staff forums at
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