WA Country Health service chair Neale Fong has called for primary care to be returned to state government’s hands and out of its federal counterpart's jurisdiction.
WA Country Health service chair Neale Fong has called for primary care to be returned to state government’s hands and out of its federal counterpart's jurisdiction.
A panel of executives in the health sector has called on changes for the industry including digitisation, improving the workforce and allocation of governments’ responsibilities.
Joining Dr Fong to speak at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia event today were Health Minister Meredith Hammat, HBF Health chief executive Lachlan Henderson, St John of God Health Care chief executive Bryan Pyne and Health Consumers council executive director Clare Mullen.
Speaking on the panel, Dr Fong acknowledged that the state government had been trying to solve issues in the sector including health barriers in regional WA.
“However, if I had one big idea, it would be to deal with this issue about the feds and the states and who's got responsibility for primary care, hospital care and aged care,” he said.
“Maybe, just maybe it's time for the states to actually take primary care back under it and make it all work together … I don’t think we can give our hospitals to the feds.
“Now, that's politically impossible. Everyone wants to run elections on health care.”
After the CEDA event, Ms Hammat acknowledged the importance of the primary care network but admitted the state government taking it back was not on the cards.
‘I would have to say it's not something currently on my list,” she said.
What Ms Hammat said was on her list was to increase workforce numbers and digitisation of the medical record system.
“There's no doubt there's a lot of exciting participation through the use of AI in our health systems,” she said on the panel.
“The state government's been working on implementing an electronic medical record… we are conscious of the need to move our systems to improve their capacity.
“It’ll be a constant journey, so there's no one stop and we're finished, there'll always be improvements in technology that I think will continue to drive how we deliver the care and make improvements so we need to make sure we've got a system that's adaptable and is always looking for those ways to make improvements.”
For the private health sector, Mr Pyne said some of the challenges include higher costs, inflation, and continued impacts from Covid.
“Certainly some of the challenges that we both had when Covid finished, we all went back into our little silos…," he said on the panel.
“In the last 18 months, 15 private hospitals and three maternity services closed, and they all point to a challenge in private health care.
“We need to ensure that everyone's, whether it's a state, public or private hospitals, are leading to come together to solve them [challenges].”
Dr Henderson echoed Mr Pyne’s sentiments over the public and private health sectors not working together.
Speaking on the panel, Dr Henderson said digitisation of the health system was still a work in progress since his time working as a GP in the 1990s.
“25 years later, we still are not interoperable across sectors. The private sector doesn't talk public sector,” he said.
“GPs can’t talk to specialists and try and engage allied health and others working in health.
“The big idea is to make systems interoperable with whatever funding that requires, because it will reduce waste in the system.
“It will improve continuity of care, good for patients, and you'll see them in the right place at the right time.”
For Ms Mullen, navigating the complex state and federal systems was another barrier present in the health sector.
“I know this is an unpopular thing to say to this room of illustrious people, but if you don't work in the health system, you don't think about the health system a lot of the time,” she said.
“I know the federal government has funded some aged care navigator roles for people who are really, really marginalised.
“But I think that you do need to think more about navigation at those key points when you do need care, which is beyond the nearly episodic stuff, where you also need to navigate complex parts of the system.”
Dr Fong said the whole health model could be converted.
“We need a hospital specialist out of the hospitals [and] in the community, doing chronic disease management in the community,” he said.
“If we'd been doing it in 2006 - let me tell you, it would have made a difference.”
