Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the importance of telehealth services into sharp focus. As we as a community continue to navigate through the pandemic it is clear that expanding telehealth services must be a priority in our efforts to rebuild a stronger and more resilient health system. Telehealth is a game changer for so many people. It enables people in regional areas to access health care that would otherwise be out of reach. Telehealth removes so many barriers for disabled people to access health care. It enables many members of our community to seek out medical supports in their lunchbreaks without, for instance, having to lose a day's wages for a short GP appointment.

We've been hearing very clearly from the community in relation to the future of telehealth. This report, which shares the findings of the Auditor-General's inspection of the expansion of telehealth services during the pandemic, highlights the work that still needs to be done to maximise the positive benefits and impacts that telehealth can provide. For a telehealth system that best services our community, we must ensure that there is a continual focus on listening to feedback from the community using the service and on implementing change when required. This report tells us that no First Nations organisations were involved in meetings where telehealth policy settings were discussed—a massive oversight. We cannot expect to have a culturally relevant or appropriate platform for as long as this remains the case.

Additionally, the Department of Health and Aged Care did not establish performance measures for telehealth expansion. Instead, it assumed that the usage and billing behaviours were sufficient indicators of success. Usage measures do not tell us anything, for instance, about the quality of care received. We could have been measuring if a person felt that their needs were met by the consultation, how easy it was to access telehealth services or the broader benefits received by the individual and community by being able to access health care in this way. It just highlights how much more effective community services are when they are co-designed by those who are affected by and utilise those services.

We have an opportunity, moving forward, to strengthen what could be a truly transformational service, to make it accessible and relevant to everyone in this country and to make sure that we as a community have a way of collectively measuring the success of this service in a way that is genuinely meaningful and helpful.

The government must commit to ongoing support and development of the telehealth service and the implementation of these recommendations more broadly, because every single person in this country deserves to have access to high-quality health care. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That concludes committee reports and government responses. Any report or response to which no senator has risen will be taken to be discharged from the Notice Paper.