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A Healthier Future For All Australians report released
28 July 2009
The Commonwealth Government has released the report "A Healthier Future For All Australians" undertaken by Dr Christine Bennett and the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commissioners.
The report was provided to the federal Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon MP, on 30 June 2009 by Dr Bennett. The full report is quite lengthy and can be downloaded from the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission's website. Click here to be taken to the report.
The report contains more than 100 recomendations. A few of those recomendations are as follows:
- We recommend that health literacy is included as a core element of the National Curriculum and that it is incorporated in national skills assessment. This should apply across primary and secondary schools;
- We recommend that all aged care providers (community and residential) should be required to have staff trained in supporting care recipients to complete advance care plans for those who wish to do so;
- We recommend additional investment includes the funding of strategies to build an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workforce across all disciplines and the development of a workforce for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health;
- We recommend that a higher proportion of new health professional educational undergraduate and postgraduate places across all disciplines be allocated to remote and rural regional centres, where possible in a multidisciplinary facility built on models such as clinical schools or university departments of Rural Health;
- We recommend that every hospital-based mental health service should be linked with a multi-disciplinary community-based sub-acute service that supports 'stepped' prevention and recovery care;
- We recommend that all Australians should have universal access to preventive and restorative dental care, and dentures, regardless of people's ability to pay. This should occur through the establishment of the 'Denticare Australia' scheme. Under the 'Denticare Australia' scheme, people will be able to select between private or public dental health plans. 'Denticare Australia' would meet the costs in both cases. The additional costs of Denticare could be funded by an increase in the Medicare Levy of 0.75 per cent of taxable income; and
- We recommend implementing a comprehensive national strategy to recruit, retain and train Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health professionals at the undergraduate and postgraduate level.
Follow this link to the full report, executive summary, sections and recommendations.
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