Health Reform

National Health Reform – what it means for Victoria.

Page contents: Implementation | Impact on Victoria’s health care system | Further information

Through the National Health and Hospitals Network Agreement (NHHN) signed on 19 May 2010, the roles and responsibilities for the delivery of health care in Victoria are changing.

The NHHN agreement outlines a comprehensive program of reform which will have far reaching effect across hospitals, primary health care, aged care, disability services, mental health services and the health workforce.  

Implementation

While there is broad agreement between Victoria and the Commonwealth on the NHHN reforms, details about how they will be implemented are still being worked through.

The Department of Health is working with the Commonwealth Government and the health sector to implement the reforms in Victoria and ensure they achieve positive outcomes for Victoria’s health system.

The department has established a comprehensive program of work to implement the reforms but there is still significant detail to be worked through. The plan is to implement key aspects of the reforms in a gradual and systematic way.

Impact on Victoria’s health care system

While the agreement means change for all those involved in the health system, in Victoria the changes are considered to be less radical compared to other states. For example:

• Hospital governance will remain the same in Victoria with health service and hospital boards retained, no change of role and appointments made by the Minister.
• Victoria pioneered activity based costing, a key element of the reform, so we will be building from a strong base to extend financial reforms to a wider range of services and to eventually move to an ‘efficient pricing’ regime.
• Block funding will be retained for small rural health services and Victoria will remain in control of HACC services and immunisation services.

The health sector will however experience other significant change including:

• the creation of a national efficient pricing regime
• access guarantees for emergency departments and elective surgery
• the national performance regime
• the transfer of funding responsibility to the Commonwealth for ‘primary care type services’ including community health services, primary mental health and cancer screening
• the introduction of Medicare Locals
• Other primary care areas will be up for review in either 2010 or 2011.

Further information

This website will be updated on a regular basis and the Department of Health will keep its partners up to date through our existing channels of communication.

For information on the Commonwealth’s latest news on health reform visit the Department of Health and Ageing website.

The National Health and Hospitals Network Agreement (NHHN) is also publicly available.