Health was a centrepiece of last 12 months’s budget, based on a recent vision for Medicare. This 12 months, there’s less health reform, however the budget does set the muse for a brand new approach to community-based mental health care.
The themes of reducing cost-of-living pressures, and expanding care in the neighborhood to maintain people out of hospital, span several key initiatives. Here’s what the budget means for the health system and Australians’ access to care.
A brand new approach to mental health services
Many Australians are missing out on the mental health support they need, with the largest problems in disadvantaged areas which have higher needs but far fewer services:
A 2022 evaluation of the Better Access initiative – which provides Medicare-subsidised mental health services – found it was not thoroughly targeted to individuals with mild to moderate illness, was often ineffective, and infrequently didn’t reach those on the bottom incomes.
The government’s recent approach appears more promising. It will spend A$361 million over 4 years to raised goal support to people’s level of need:
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for those with mild mental health concerns, from January 1 2026, there shall be a brand new free digital health service which could be used and not using a referral
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for those with moderate-to-severe mental health needs, the federal government is beefing up and rebranding the Head to Health network, which can bring it as much as 61 free walk-in community mental health services
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for those with more complex needs, Primary Health Networks (bodies chargeable for improving primary care) shall be funded to work with GPs to construct a team of mental health nurses and other allied health professionals to offer free coordination and support.
This more targeted approach is welcome, and will ensure fewer people fall through the cracks within the system. But getting the design and implementation of this recent system right shall be crucial. And given workforce constraintsincluding the short supply of psychiatrists, it could be a struggle to satisfy demand.
New urgent care clinics
Twenty-nine more urgent care clinics shall be built, at a price of $227 million, bringing the whole to 87. These clinics provide relatively straightforward take care of urgent problems, resembling sprains or fevers, and are intended to maintain people out of overflowing emergency departments.
Shifting care out of hospitals is vital because hospital demand and costs keep surging higher. But the best way these recent clinics are designed and run should be informed by evaluations of those which have already been built, to make sure they reduce pressure on hospitals and are good value for money.
Supporting older people to get out – and stay out – of hospital
Older people can get stuck in hospital for too long because they will’t get the support they need in the neighborhood.
The federal government will work with the states to raised tackle this issue in multiple ways, including more hospital outreach services and virtual care, adding as much as $882 million over five years. If done well, this may not only improve quality of life for older people, but additionally help to liberate hospital beds.
Freezing medicine costs
Patient medicine costs have already fallen due to previous cuts to patient fees and the introduction of 60-day shelling out. This budget does a bit more by freezing maximum prescription fees at $31.60 for non-concession card holders for one 12 months, and at $7.70 for concession card holders for five years, at a complete cost of $318 million over five years.
The longer freeze for poorer patients is smart, because they’re about twice as likely because the wealthiest people to say that cost stops them getting prescribed medicines. And concession card holders didn’t get a fee cut when a $12.50 reduction was given to other Australians within the 2022–23 budget.
This 12 months’s budget also allocates $3.4 billion to adding recent drugs to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, while pharmacists shall be funded to offer free vaccinations to aged care residents of their homes.
But one measure goes against the cost-of-living grain. The $1 discount that pharmacies can offer on prescriptions will step by step fall to zero, further dampening price war, which is already limited within the highly regulated community pharmacy sector.
Other investments
As all the time, there are dozens of other health items. Some of the more notable ones include:
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more cash for medical research, with $1.4 billion over 13 years, including spending on existing initiatives and two recent focus areas from 2027–28: low-survival cancers and reducing health inequities
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$90 million over three years to assist get overseas-trained doctors into Australia, in keeping with a review
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$70 million over 4 years to make MRI scans more accessible and reasonably priced
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a deal with women’s health, including nearly $50 million over 4 years on gynaecology consultations for girls with complex conditions, and more spending on women’s sexual and reproductive health services, including longer midwife consultations, and indemnity insurance cover for privately practising midwives supporting homebirths.
What’s missing?
There is a few spending on prevention, including measures to stop and treat HIV, recent vaccine funding, expansion of bowel screening to people aged 45 to 50, and funding to proceed a spread existing programs. But the brand new investment is restricted given how far Australia lags behind other wealthy countries in funding to maintain people healthy, and there isn’t any sign that Australia shall be constructing the strong Centre for Disease Control we’d like.
Some areas where costs are a barrier to take care of many got little attention, including dental care and specialist care. And while there have been measures to spice up the health-care workforce, and improve rural health, recent funding in these areas was limited.
Perhaps the largest black hole is public hospital funding. Last 12 months, the federal government agreed to pay an even bigger share under a brand new five-year deal, however the budget papers on health spending don’t take this into consideration.
Even so, federal public hospital spending is predicted to grow by about $2 billion a 12 months. This shall be higher under the deal that the federal and state governments are near finalising. When the deal is finished, hopefully it is going to include a recent approach to national health reform that tackles a number of the problems that weren’t addressed on this budget.