Our Healthcare Future

Long-Term Plan for Healthcare in Tasmania in 2040

The Tasmanian Government has released the Long-Term Plan for Healthcare in Tasmania 2040.

The Long-Term Plan provides a blueprint of how the Tasmanian Government will work in partnership with the Tasmanian community to achieve its vision that all Tasmanians are supported by a world class, innovative and integrated health system.

The Long-Term Plan is supported by three regional Clinical Services Profiles, which describe the clinical services to be delivered over the next five years in response to projected regional needs and identified priorities to expand and enhance clinical services.

The Long-Term Plan builds upon many initiatives already underway, including Health Workforce 2040, the 10 year strategy for Digital Health Transformation – Improving Patient Outcomes and hospital masterplanning.

Public comment received on the exposure drafts of the Long-Term Plan for Healthcare in Tasmania 2040 and the Clinical Services Profiles informed the final version of the documents.

The Department of Health acknowledges and thanks those individuals and organisations who provided a written submission.

An implementation plan has also been developed and released. It  focuses on priorities for implementation over the next five years, This will be supported by regular public reporting on progress to achieving the goals of the Long-Term Plan.

Due to the long-term nature of the Plan, other aspects of its implementation will be phased over several years. This will be done in such a way as to ensure that actions with the greatest immediate effect on the health outcomes that matter the most to Tasmanians will be prioritised.

Tasmanian Role Delineation Framework

The development of the Long-Term Plan for Healthcare in Tasmania 2040 and Clinical Services Profiles has been underpinned by a revision to the Tasmanian Role Delineation Framework (TRDF).

The TRDF is a health planning tool which describes the health services available in Tasmania, categorised by levels ranging from one to six. Level 1 describes generalist health services delivered by primary care providers, for example health checks provided by a local GP. Higher levels describe increasing specialisation, up to Level 6, which describes highly complex services delivered in tertiary hospitals with specialised equipment and expert staff.

The revisions to the TRDF were undertaken in consultation with clinicians, consumers and health service managers, including three Regional Reference Groups established as part of the Our Healthcare Future reforms and the Tasmanian Clinical Networks.

To maintain an accurate view of our health system capability in the future, all services will be regularly re-assessed against the TRDF to ensure each service area continues to meet the requirements of its designated role. The TRDF will be updated every five years through to 2040.

Our Healthcare Future Reforms

Our Healthcare Future is the second stage of the Tasmanian Government’s long-term health reform agenda.

The Stage 2 reforms are building a sustainable health system in Tasmania by connecting and rebalancing 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 whose needs may be appropriate for subacute, primary, community and home-based services.

Stage Two reforms will focus on the delivery of better care in the community, as part of a balanced and sustainable health system to ensure that Tasmanians can access the right care, in the right place, at the right time.

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

Submissions in response to the Consultation Paper were received from a broad cross section of the community, including consumers, clinicians, professional groups, service providers, advocacy groups, policy experts and academics. They responses identified:

• 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 the Tasmanian Health Senate and other consumer and clinical engagement strategies to assist in providing this advice.

Progress Summary Reports

The Our Healthcare Future Immediate Actions and Consultation Paper also included a number of immediate actions, for which the Department of Health publishes quarterly.

Read the latest Progress Summary Reports

Advancing Tasmania’s Health

Our Healthcare Future: Advancing Tasmanian’s Health was released in December 2022. It provides a united vision that all Tasmanians are supported by a world-class, innovative and integrated health system.  

It provides a policy direction for healthcare in Tasmania over the next 20 years.

Our Healthcare Future: Advancing Tasmanian’s Health provides six principles to support how the vision will be achieved and guide decision making.

The Tasmanian health system will be:

• consumer centred
• collaborative
• innovative
• integrated
• equitable
• evidence based

Based on these principles, six strategic ambitions have been developed for the future health reforms:

• Better and More Accessible Community Care
• Strengthening Prevention
• Partnering with Consumers and Clinicians
• Building the Health Workforce
• Delivering the Health Infrastructure of the Future
• Strengthening Tasmania’s Pandemic Response

Development of Our Healthcare Future: Advancing Tasmania’s Health was guided by an Expert Advisory Group, representing health consumers, clinicians, academics, primary health and social services. In addition, Our Healthcare Future: Advancing Tasmanian’s Health was informed by feedback received during public consultation on the exposure draft of the document released in June 2022.

The Long-Term Plan for Healthcare in Tasmania 2040 includes six action areas which have been designed to deliver the strategic ambitions and vision set out in Our Healthcare Future: Advancing Tasmania’s Health.

One State, One Health System, Better Outcomes

The Stage 1 reforms commenced in 2015 with One State, One Health System, Better Outcomes, which was the first step of designing and implementing a single, statewide service. The focus was on the four major hospitals and defining their roles within the health system. The reforms were developed through an extensive community consultation process. Documents and consultation papers associated with the Stage 1 reforms are provided below.

• Exposure Draft White Paper (2015)
• White Paper (2015)
• Tasmanian Clinical Services Profile Implementation Paper (2015)
• Green Paper: Delivering Safe and Sustainable Clinical Services (2014)
• Green Paper Supplement 1 - Sustainability (2014)
• Green Paper Supplement 2 - Workforce (2014)
• Green Paper Supplement 3 - Community Care (2014)
• Green Paper Supplement 4 - Emergency Care (2014)
• Green Paper Supplement 5 - Elective Surgery (2014)
• Green Paper Issues Paper: Rebuilding Tasmania’s Health System (2014)

RHH Access Solutions

• Patient’s First Hospital Actions (2019)
• RHH Access Solutions Action Plan (2019)
• RHH Access Solutions Occasional Papers (2019)

Where to get more information

For further information about the Our Healthcare Future reforms and consultation process, email: [email protected].