Consensus on primary health care reform
The Australian Government should listen to the health sector’s ideas on reform of primary and community health care when establishing local primary health organisations, according to participants at a Roundtable hosted by the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association (AHHA).
Executive director, Prue Power, said that the AHHA supports the call from many primary care stakeholders for the proposed Medicare Locals, to be re-named.
The Government appears to have a very narrow definition of primary care, as a one-on-one clinical service funded by Medicare. However, primary and community health care is a broad sector which includes activities such as health promotion, population health interventions and community education.
She said if the Government was genuine about taking 100% funding and policy responsibility for ‘primary health’ it needs to define what it means by key terms, such as ‘primary care’ and ‘mental health’ and then give Medicare Locals a name which accurately reflects these definitions.
