Posted on

Submissions to Review of Medicare Locals

Australia’s former Chief Medical Officer Professor John Horvath AO is currently overseeing the Australian Government’s review of Medicare Locals announced by Health Minister Dutton on 16th December 2013. Professor  Horvath is expected to provide his report to Government by March 2014.
Stakeholders have been invited to comment on various aspects of Medicare Locals’ functions including:

  • The role of MLs and their performance against stated objectives
  • The performance of MLs in administering existing programmes, including after-hours GP services
  • Recognising general practice as the cornerstone of primary care in the ML functions and governance structures
  • Ensuring Commonwealth funding supports clinical services, rather than administration
  • Processes for ensuring that existing clinical services are not disrupted or discouraged by ML programs
  • Interaction between MLs and Local Hospital Networks and other health services, including boundaries
  • Tendering and contracting arrangements
  • Other related matters.

CeHA has identified the following submissions to the Review:-

Posted on

National Commission of Audit – some submissions related to healthcare

The National Commission of Audit was announced by the Treasurer, the Hon Joe Hockey MP, and the Minister for Finance, Senator the Hon Mathias Cormann, on 22 October 2013. Although the Treasurer has stated that the total health budget will not be cut, there have already been a number of “suggestions” floated publicly about how money for healthcare might be “better” spent. According to the Commission’s web site, the call for public submissions has closed. Whilst we wait for submissions to be made public on the Commission’s web site, the Consumers e-Health Alliance has identified a number of submissions that are relevant to the debate about healthcare spending, policy and governance:-

The following submissions address non health-specific areas  covered under the Commission’s terms of reference:-

In addition, a Senate Select Committee has been formed to inquire into aspects of the Commission of Audit. Submissions to this inquiry are progressively being published at:-

http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Abbott_Governments_Commission_of_Audit/Commission_of_Audit/Submissions

The Senate Select Committee is accepting submissions until 31st January 2014.

[ This page last updated 2014-01-17 at 2:30pm AEST. ]