National health reform

The Prime Minister officially launched the report of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission at the Australian National University on Monday 27 July 2009. The full report is available online on the NHHRC website.

The report contains three main reform goals:

• Tackling major access and equity issues that affect health outcomes for people now

• Redesigning our health system so that it is better positioned to respond to emerging challenges

• Creating an agile and self-improving health system for longer-term sustainability.

A few points of interest include:

• The Commonwealth should assume responsibility for all primary health care policy and funding. (States would continue to be owners and managers of public health services. Non government organisations and the private sector would continue to be providers of services).

• There is a strong to build a regional network focus in primary health care to provide better access to front line care through our GPs and related community care services. A part of this will be the development of Primary Health Care Organisations to improve population health planning and regional delivery of primary health care services, integrating closely with general practice. (It will be interesting to see how the Divisions of General Practice position themselves to take on this role.)

• Voluntary enrolment with a single primary health care service is recommended for youngfamilies, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and people with chronic and complex conditions (including people with a disability or long-term mental illness)
  

• A new universal scheme for access to basic dental services, ‘Denticare Australia’ which would provide for prevention, restoration and provision of dentures paid through either a private health insurance plan or through public dental services.
  

• A national e-health system be implemented with a personal electronic health record owned and controlled by the individual as a central measure

• Funding for residential aged care providers will be able to make arrangements with primary health care providers to provide visiting sessional and on-call medical care

HCCA will be assisting the Consumers Health Forum in preparing a more detailed analysis of the recommendations and findings of the NHHRC Final Report and will let members know once this is complete.

In the interim, we are interested in your thoughts.

National Mental Health Agenda

I attended the Grace Groom Memorial Lecture at the National Press Club this week as the guest of Medicines Australia.

Dr Grace Groom was the former CEO of the Mental Health Council of Australia. Dr Groom died in 2006. She made a strong contribution to mental health reform in Australia and this is recognised each year by an annual Grace Groom Memorial Lecture Series, organised by the Mental Health Council of Australia.

The Hon Nicola Roxon MP, the Minister for Health and the Minister responsible for mental health was the guest speaker for the 2008 Memorial Lecture.

The Minister outlined the Government's reform agenda for mental health and announced funding for a range of projects. She also announced the members of the new Advisory Council on Mental Health, to be led by former head of the Mental Health Council, John Mendoza. The Pdf of the media release is available on the DOHA website.

The speech was in keeping with the Government's commitment to early intervention and prevention that was outlined earlier this year. In April the Government established a new National Preventative Health Task Force, made up of health experts from around Australia. The task force is to develop strategies to tackle the health challenges caused by tobacco, alcohol and obesity, and develop a National Preventative Health Strategy by June 2009.

One of the ideas that interested me was the increased use of technology to help people better manage their mental health and wellbeing.

The Black Dog Institute will receive $1.8 million for a mobile tracker system that uses the internet and mobile phones to help people track their wellbeing in areas including mood, appetite, sleep, medication, physical activity, and drug and alcohol use. The information is fed back to the users on how they are going, and alerts are sent when things aren’t going well, along with links to appropriate self-help tools.

The example given is a woman reporting that she has been feeling anxious and not sleeping well. The system would send her an alert pointing to tools for managing anxiety and giving tips for sleeping better. The alert may also recommend discussing the issues with a GP or clinician. Reports can be printed off so that consumers can take them to their clinicians.

There is another project run through Swinburne University of Technology for Anxiety Online — an online program helping people with anxiety disorders work through a module of cognitive behaviour therapy, either independently or with the assistance of a trained therapist.