Our Healthcare Future

Immediate actions

The Department is implementing immediate actions as part of the development and implementation of the long-term plan for healthcare in Tasmania.

Stage 2 - Our Healthcare Future

Our Healthcare Future will build a sustainable health system in Tasmania. 

It will connect and rebalance care across acute, subacute, rehabilitation, mental health and primary health to care in the community.

We know that healthcare demand is increasing in Tasmania due to:

• Social and demographic features including ageing population and high number of people living with co-morbid health conditions.
• People being cared for in hospital instead of through subacute, primary, community and home-based services.
• Care in the wrong place isn’t best for people and comes at a high cost.

Around $100 million is spent each year on care delivered in hospital that could have been delivered at a lower cost in the community.

Stage Two reforms will focus on the delivery of better care in the community, as part of a balanced and sustainable health system – right care, in the right place, at the right time.

Consultation paper and emerging themes

The release of the Our Healthcare Future Immediate Actions and Consultation Paper in late 2020 marked the start of the Stage Two reforms. The Consultation Paper highlighted key issues impacting healthcare in Tasmania now and in the future, and proposed three key improvement areas:

1. Better Community Care
2. Modernising Tasmania’s Health System
3. Planning for the Future

The Department would like to thank all the organisations and individuals who prepared submissions in response to the Immediate Actions and Consultation Paper.

Analysis of submissions – Emerging Themes

Submissions were received from a broad cross section of the community, including consumers, clinicians, professional groups, service providers, advocacy groups, policy experts and academics.

The Department’s completed analysis outlines the Emerging Themes (Summary Version) from the submissions, finding:

• wide support for the overarching proposed themes
• strong support for patients to be treated in the community where possible, and for greater emphasis on preventative health
• an acknowledged need for digital transformation, long-term infrastructure and workforce planning to improve access to services and support new models of care.

The submissions noted the importance of health professionals and consumers being involved in health planning and supported the creation of a statewide Clinical Senate and other consumer and clinical engagement strategies to assist in providing this advice.

Further themes to emerge against each key improvement area are set out in detail in the Emerging Themes (Full Version) report. The report also maps the key themes from the submissions against improvement activities that the Tasmanian Government has planned or underway, to identify opportunities for further reform under Our Healthcare Future.

Submissions received in response to the Consultation

The submissions below were received in response to the Our Healthcare Future Immediate Actions and Consultation Paper and have been published in accordance with the Tasmanian Government’s Public Submissions Policy.

In line with the Tasmanian Government Guidelines ‘Publication of submissions received by Tasmanian Government Departments in response to consultation on major policy matters’, some submissions were appropriately withheld from publication or information was wholly or partly redacted. For example, private phone numbers or information that is confidential or identifies third parties.

Opinions expressed in the submissions are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the Tasmanian Government or the Department of Health.

If you believe your submission has been inappropriately withheld from publication or redacted, please feel free to contact the Department of Health to discuss this.