Health Workforce As A Health Policy Issue In Australia

Health Workforce a Health Policy Issue in Australia

Identify a Current or recent Health Policy issue facing an Australian Government, or a particular level of Australian Government, in a Country of your choice.

The health system in Australia is publicly funded and is universally accessed by all the peoples of Australia without any discrimination. The government of Australia entitles its citizens with subsidized health treatment. The Australian citizens are provided free treatment in the health care centers and hospitals, which are generally public funded. The insurance companies also help in the treatment by providing coverage for the treatment in private hospitals, which are very costly, and cover certain disease and critical illness. The cost of the treatment is borne by the insurance company on behalf of the patients (Mossialos et al., 2015). The health system in Australia is very complex as federal, state and the territorial government shares the structure of funding the health system in the country. The division of the funding system and the communicational problem between the patients and the health service providers is breaking the cooperation and integration in providing health care service very difficult. Australia is in a good position among all other countries of the world with respect to life expectancy and infant mortality rates. However, Australia is facing and will face serious issues and challenges in maintaining and providing high quality health care system. The other half of the project will discuss regarding the issues and the challenges faced by the Australian Government (Baum et al., 2016).

Health workforce has become a significant issue all over the world. This has also affected Australian Health Workforce by a large amount. With the involvement of international and national agencies new models are being developed and implemented in Australia. The government of Australia should decide to develop better trained and educated public health workforce for the future.

Health workforce has turned into a noteworthy concern and a wellbeing approach issue the world over as of late and it was the concentration for the World Health Report in 2006. All around, expanded worries about the ‘mind empty’ of wellbeing experts out of creating nations to more created nations prompted the draft WHO code of training about HR for wellbeing. Inside Australia, the arrival of the Productivity Commission Report in 2005 concentrated national consideration on the hugeness and significance of the present and future health workforce in this nation. This finished in the marking of a between legislative consent to move to a national enlistment framework in Australia for some of the wellbeing callings in March 2008. This was trailed by a later arrangement of an administration board of trustees for the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency which will be built up. Other essential and related issues being advanced broadly incorporate the improvement of abilities for various wellbeing callings and the steering of new workforce models (Briggs et al., 2014).

Policies for the Public Health Workforce in Australia

Nonetheless, these activities have been noiseless on issues to do with what sort of workforce is required to enhance Australia’s general health workforce and in this manner, address future general medical problems and difficulties, including those difficulties that are not presently known. With the coming of another Labor government in late 2007, which has seen the foundation of various new commissions, boards of trustees and other working gatherings including – the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission, Preventative Health Taskforce, Primary Health Care Strategy, National Indigenous Health Equity Council, there has been extensive dialog in regards to an expanded accentuation on illness counteractive action and wellbeing advancement. In any case, for such approach aim to be made an interpretation of effectively into training, this will depend on having a workforce that has pertinent and specific learning and aptitudes identified with the field of anticipation and general health practice all the more for the most part. In this way, it is convenient to analyze what sort of workforce will be required and to consider the related strategy plans that require consideration.

The development of general health training in Australia has been a result of intentional government speculation and in addition the consequence of more extensive strategies in the wellbeing and instruction areas. In any case, there are no as of now planned endeavors in progress to address these issues for the future.

The expansion of general health training in Australia has been a moderately late wonder, following quite a while of institutional steadiness. The first School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine was built up by the Commonwealth Institute of Health at the University of Sydney in 1927. For a significant part of the twentieth century, Australians looking for a MPH capability needed to migrate to Sydney for a long time to embrace this postgraduate preparing. The 1988 Kerr White Report (the Bicentennial Review of Public Health Education and Research) prompted the foundation of Public Health Education and Research Program (PHERP) and the MPH wound up plainly accessible in many resources of medication around Australia by the mid 1990s. The consequent Dawkins changes in advanced education additionally prompted the prospering of general wellbeing training in numerous new resources of wellbeing sciences in colleges that did not have medicinal schools. Before the finish of the twentieth century and without precedent for Australia, MPH and other undergrad and postgraduate projects in general wellbeing and related fields, for example, wellbeing advancement, were set up and assembled a personality very separate from the field of medication.

In late 1993, the Commonwealth practiced its arrangement buying influence by stipulating that PHERP subsidizing would be accessible to consortia of colleges in each state, so understudies could get to the full scope of general wellbeing disciplines. Additionally changes in advanced education, alongside the improvement of the National Competition Policy, in any case, kept on reshaping the scene for colleges. In the decade since the late 1990s, colleges started to abbreviate the length of MPH programs, offer more particular postgraduate capabilities, present undergrad capabilities in general health, and in addition proficient doctorates  in general health. Worldwide understudies developed in numbers for the MPH as colleges effectively enrolled for full-expense paying understudies. These patterns were strengthened, if not exacerbated, by the Commonwealth endeavoring to buy new “items” (i.e. alleged “PHERP Innovations”) through “best cutting” of existing dollars for new undertakings while the subsidizing base was bolted into authentic examples.

Simultaneously, the conditions of NSW and Victoria started to offer propelled professional preparing programs in general health for the individuals who had finished MPHs. These arrangement based plans created a gathering of all around prepared general wellbeing experts who have to a great extent optimized into administration and influential positions. At the flip side of the workforce range, with the development of group based health administrations, popular health capabilities were produced for the professional instruction and preparing (VET) segment too. These preparation programs ended up noticeably accessible for such workforce classifications as medication and liquor laborers, Aboriginal wellbeing specialists, and home care orderlies. At last, as a result of the PHERP Review in 2005, which set the issue of the nature of MPH instruction on the arrangement motivation, draft rehearse based skills are at present being finished as a major aspect of the proposed amendment for MPH programs.

By 2008, there were no less than 21 advanced education foundations in Australia which were putting forth undergrad or potentially postgraduate capabilities in general health, with 17 establishments getting at any rate some financing through the Commonwealth PHERP conspire.

Stakeholders in the health industry play a major role in making and framing policies for better health standard in the country. To make better-planned and clear policy regarding health policy issues and services engagement of effective stakeholder is very essential. Engagement of the stakeholders in resolving the policy issues is very essential and will be beneficial for both the department and the stakeholders. The benefits that the engagement of stakeholders can bring include contributing to enhance the health services standard by contributing as experts to the development of policy and program (Achtermann et al., 2014). The department will be benefited by the engagement of stakeholders through improved information flows as they have local knowledge about the issues. Engagement of stakeholders will benefit the department of health in Australia as well as the stakeholders themselves by high quality of decision-making, increased efficiency in delivery of service improvement in risk management services, policy and program development processes are channeled. The greater the engagement of stakeholders the better will be the services provided in collaboration with the stakeholders and will provide such outcome, which will be beneficial to the community as a whole. Stakeholders can enhance the community confidence and will enhance the quality of projects. The engagement of the stakeholders may enhance the capacity to innovate (Whiteford, 2015). The health industry includes various and many stakeholders who support the health system and the working of the health institutes properly and smoothly. The Stakeholders who cooperate with the government and the health institute enhance the quality and standard of health system in the country. The stakeholders and their roles can be classified as follows:

International Organizations: International organizations like WHO, ILO, World Bank and organization with similar objective are the major stakeholders in the health regime of the world and provides helps to the nations to enhance the quality and standard of health in every country (Jolley et al., 2014). The engagement of this type of stakeholders create sustainable and productive employment of resources, which leads to improvement of health, development of healthy communities and the citizens and population of the country get equitable treatment and provide an healthy environment for the population of the country. The potential role of the international organization acting as the stakeholder is to promote the development and improvement in the health standard and enable that the developments are made at the country level through the modes of advocacy, research, better infrastructure, and investment in plot programs of the country. Poor health is a symbol of inequality of status and facilities that the country provides to its people or citizen (Bryceson, Fitzgerald & Annison, 2016). The international organizations are the best-suited stakeholder in the health regime as it can help the country by providing advance technological knowhow in the field of health treatment. The international organizations have a record of well-known policy makers who can help in the development policy in the health regime, which will help the government to run the health system without any difficulty. The population of the country will be benefited from the information available from the international organization about their health and can access resources for the betterment of their health standard.

National and local government: The economy and the community will move ahead if the population of the country has good health. Increase in the employment opportunities and investment in the country’s economy helps to facilitate the labor market and helps to enhance the level of fitness and health. The government plays a vital role in the development of health related policy and services and promote the workplace as a setting for health. Government at all levels has the responsibility for the prevention of diseases and protection of health of the citizen of the country. Employers are accountable to the government to take steps and provide securities for their health and safety of its employees. Government has a potential role to play in the improvement in the health standard of the country. The government should improve the workplace environment and health standard, which will enhance the quality of work in the industry and as a result will enhance the quality of health standard of the overall community. The government has the responsibility to create an environment and promote health and wellbeing of the community. The government should create employment opportunities to enhance the standard of living of the people, which will result in automatic growth in the healthy environment and health standard of the population of the country. The government should encourage the employers to promote health through national and local health campaigns, schemes, and capacity. To improve and develop the health system in the country the government can act as a developer of health related public policy. The government must also make changes to some agricultural and food policies so that the population gets a higher quality of food products and gain their health standard (Cullerton et al., 2016).

Non-Governmental Organization: Many organizations within the country are involved in the maintenance and aware the population about the possible health issues. The NGO’s provide advocacy and promote awareness among the population of the country regarding the specific cause and increases knowledge through work and events. NGO’s promote good practice in improving the health of the population, public health, and economic development. The NGO is using different techniques, method and platform promote and aware the population of the community and support the development of the health system and regime in the country. The NGO’s provide awareness in disease prevention and health promotion through various roles. NGO’s are generally run by the youth population of the country and are advanced in the use of technology. NGO’s consist of persons from various fields, which help them to conduct research in various aspects and issues faced by the society, community and the country as a whole. As the NGO’s are run by the youth, they have more ability and power to bring the resources into the process of development (Whitty & Littlejohns, 2015).

Employers: Employers are the person who has the responsibility to provide its employees with safe and healthy environment so that the production capacity of the unit enhances which will result in the economic growth of the country. The more the economic growth of the country the more the country will be able to invest in the health and security of the population of the country. The employers have an important role in the up gradation of the health system by involving themselves in national and local programs and promote the health of the employee. The employer shall aware and promote the benefits of good diet and nutritional level among the employees. The employees should be aware about the benefits of safe food preparation and storage through coordination and integration between the employer and the employees (Boxall & Gillespie, 2013).

Health Insurance Companies: The health insurance companies play a vital role in the improvement of health standard of the people of the country by providing fund and indemnifying them from the possible health risks. The insurance company has technical expertise and share expertise about the possible health issues (Akompab et al., 2013).

Conclusion:

Therefore it is concluded that a number of reform options have been discussed in the project. The National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission have recommended various reforms in the policies in the department of health. The government has introduced many reforms in the health care system in the country but many of its schemes have failed considerably. The governments Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and Medicare faced considerable opposition when they were introduced as a government scheme. The government is willing to take developing approaches in the field of health care but the government is facing several obstacles in implementation of those schemes and policies. The government has also recognized certain measures and remedies to overcome those obstacles. Due to lack of clarity between the levels of the government over the departmental responsibilities hampers the development of the health system in the country. In many states of Australia, there is a dispute with proper and appropriate funding of the hospital and health care units between the governments. Therefore, it is recommended that the government should engage all the recognized stakeholders in the health regime to make and frame policies to overcome the present and future possible obstacles that the government of Australia is facing or is going to face. The stakeholders who can bring development in the health sector of the country should take the initiatives

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