Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Lyne for his question. The short answer to his question is yes. The Minister for Health and Ageing and I at some stage over the next couple of months will work our way to Port Macquarie and do as we have done most recently at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, the Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide, the Townsville Hospital and the Cairns Base Hospital—that is, sit down with the honourable member’s local health and hospital community and road-test the recommendations which have been put forward by the Bennett commission of inquiry on the future of the health and hospital system.

I noted in particular the contents of his question went in part to the state of accident and emergency and to the state of intensive care. I noted also his question went to the equitable provision of cancer care services and also to the need for better primary health care, and he raised in particular the point concerning GP related services and the possibility of GP superclinics. I am sure the honourable member is now familiar with the contents of the recommendations of the Bennett health reform commission report, and it goes to each of these categories. It goes to: how do we provide better primary health care across the country with more flexible hours and with more GP related services in order partly to take pressure off the acute hospital system, acute care beds and accident and emergency by having more of those concerns, which families legitimately encounter, dealt with in the community through the provision of those services? That is one aspect of it. The second, of course, goes to the proper provision of resources for accident and emergency.

The health minister, as the honourable member may be familiar with, recently negotiated a new agreement with the states and territories of some $750 million to provide better access to accident and emergency across the country for the immediate period ahead. I am advised this is the first time that the Commonwealth has so engaged in a specific purpose payment with the states and territories specifically targeted at A&E. We did so about 12 months ago in relation to elective surgery, the first time the Commonwealth has engaged in a specific purpose payment to increase the number of elective surgery treatments. I understand from the health minister that that agreement with the states and territories resulted in an additional 40,000 elective surgery procedures across the country.

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