It is Australia’s turn to get a new National Health Performance Authority after the Victorian Government abandoned its opposition to the creation of the body. According to sources in a meeting of federal, state and territory health ministers in Melbourne this week all groups have agreed in principle to the establishment of the authority which will monitor and report on the performance of hospitals and health services.
According to Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon health reform funding would be withheld from Victoria unless the state Government agreed let the authority go ahead. Victorian Health Minister David Davis said agreement in principle had been reached after the Commonwealth recognized the states and territories as managers of the hospital system. “This is about the recognition of the states as system managers and the Commonwealth has stepped back from many of its requirements for naming and shaming [hospitals],” Mr Davis said. Ms Roxon said she was pleased Victoria was “back in the fold”.
ACT Health Minister Katy Gallagher said the Commonwealth had agreed that the authority give state and territories about 45 days' notice before publishing reports which said hospitals or health services were under-performing. This she added would give local health authorities time to respond to allegations of under-performance before a report was finalized and published. Ms Gallagher said the ACT Government was happy for the authority to publish health performance data. She said, “From the ACT's point of view we've never been too worried about it because we publicly report a whole range of information anyway,” Ms Gallagher said.
“We have no hesitation about them making sure that as systems manager they [the states and territories] get early notification of problems, they get an opportunity to be able to remediate those problems,” Ms Roxon said. The chairman of the meeting and West Australian Health Minister, Dr Kim Hames, said state governments would be able to use the time to discuss the results with health services, check their accuracy and seek explanations, if necessary. Agreement was subject to a production of final reworked draft laws and a framework for the authority.