The National Health Performance Authority has today highlighted the stupidity of Tony Abbott’s decision to scrap Labor’s landmark Health and Hospitals Reform Agreement and rip $57 billion out of public hospitals.
The NHPA Hospital Performance report highlights the huge discrepancies in costs between hospitals which Labor’s reforms would have tackled, to drive greater efficiencies and better outcomes for patients.
The report finds procedures in some hospitals were costing almost twice as much as the exact same procedure in another hospital.
The average cost of procedures ranged from $3,100 in the most efficient hospitals, to $6,400 in other hospitals performing similar work.
Labor’s reforms were designed to establish the most efficient price for hospital services and provided incentives for all levels of government to work together to ensure our hospitals are run as efficiently as possible.
The savings and efficiencies realised through these reforms would have brought down emergency department waiting times and reduced elective surgery waiting lists.
Instead we have returned to yet more cost shifting, disagreement and no national commitment whatsoever to reform the sector.
Worse than this, Tony Abbott has set the reform agenda back a decade by ripping $57 billion out of public hospitals, and abandoned the policy to improve efficiencies and patient care in public hospitals.
This short sighted decision will increase emergency department waiting times, increase elective surgery waiting times, and reduce the number of hospital beds, doctors and nurses across the country.
State Premiers have warned the cuts are unsustainable and hospital services will suffer because of Tony Abbott and his Government.
Today’s report highlights Tony Abbott’s lies on hospital funding, and the stupidity of his decision to scrap Labor’s landmark Health and Hospital reforms.