Compendium of Priorities and Initiatives (Continued)
Health and Ageing
Petrol Sniffing Strategy — Enhancing the supply and uptake of Opal
The Government will provide a $38.5 million funding package over four years to continue to expand the voluntary roll out of Opal fuel. Additional fuel subsidies will be provided to the manufacturer of Opal fuel that will enable the establishment of new storage facilities for Opal fuel in Darwin and northern Queensland. The new fuel storage facilities will enable community demand for Opal fuel to be met in northern Australia, in particular the Top End of the Northern Territory, the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cape York regions of Queensland and the East Kimberley in Western Australia. The new storage facilities are planned to be operational by 2012‑13.
Nursing Rural Locum Scheme for Nurses
The Government will provide $28.8 million over four years between 2010‑11 and 2013‑14 to assist around 750 locum nurses (3,000 over four years) with their costs of living, including accommodation and travel support. This measure will also provide a locum allowance thus improving the attractiveness of the locum posts.
This scheme aims to boost nursing service delivery and capacity in rural locations.
Support for the Allied Health Workforce
Rural and remote areas of Australia are experiencing shortages of allied health professionals, which impacts on service delivery capacity and potentially health outcomes in rural and remote areas.
The Government has committed $5.3 million over four years to establish a rural locum scheme for allied health professionals. The scheme will provide around 100 locum placements annually, allowing allied health professionals, such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists and podiatrists, in rural areas to undertake professional development opportunities and take leave. This 2010‑11 measure will contribute to improved service delivery and improve recruitment and retention of allied health professionals.
The Government is also providing $6.5 million over four years to fund an additional 100 clinical placement scholarships for allied health students each year. This 2010‑11 measure builds on the success of the Government's Allied Health Clinical Placements Scholarship Scheme and will support an increase in health workforce capacity, including in rural primary care settings.
Additional Places on the Australian General Practice Training (AGPT) Program
The Government is funding a $344.9 million expansion of the Australian General Practice Training (AGPT) Program. When combined with previous investments, this will double General Practice training places from 600 to 1,200 over the period 2008 to 2014, delivering around 1,375 new GPs or GPs-in-training by 2013, or 5,500 new GPs or GPs-in-training over the next decade.
The Australian General Practice Training (AGPT) Program has a rural training pathway and the general training pathway. General Practice Education and Training Limited (GPET), the Commonwealth Company responsible for the management of the AGPT program, is required to ensure at least 50 per cent of registrars are training in rural and regional areas (defined as areas falling within the ASGC RA 2‑5 classification).
Financial incentives are available to registrars undertaking their training in rural and remote areas of Australia.
This will improve access to General Practice in rural and regional Australia (as registrars provide services while they train), and increase the likelihood of registrars choosing to stay in rural and regional Australia throughout their careers.
Specialist Training Program
The Government is spending $144.5 million over four years to increase the capacity of the Specialist Training Program. This measure will provide for an increase of training places sufficient to bring the total number of annual places up to 900 by 2014 to deliver the equivalent of 680 more specialist doctors into the health system over the next decade. The delivery of training in rural and regional areas is a priority under this program.
Prevocational General Practice Placements Program (PGPPP)
The Government is committing $149.6 million over four years for the Prevocational General Practice Placements Program (PGPPP). The PGPPP is a national prevocational training program offering junior doctors the opportunity to gain clinical experience in primary care practices around Australia. The program aims to increase junior doctors' understanding of primary care and encourages them to take up general practice as a career. A priority of the program is to make placements available in rural and remote areas.
MSOAP Cataracts Funding - Ophthalmology Eye Teams for Rural Australia
$5 million over four years from 2010‑11 to 2013‑14 has been allocated to increase the number of ophthalmology outreach services provided through the Medical Specialist Outreach Assistance Program (MSOAP). It is anticipated the delivery of new or expanded ophthalmology services will start from 1 January 2011. People who are aged over 55 years and live in Australian Standard Geographical Classification Remoteness Areas 2 (Inner Regional) to 5 (Very Remote) will be targeted under the program.
Multi-Purpose Services
This proposal will provide funds to build more than 280 sub-acute beds or bed-equivalents to Multi-Purpose Services, providing around 33,000 more acute services each year when fully implemented at a cost of $122 million over four years. This will provide more flexible places in rural and regional areas to patients who require either sub-acute or aged care services.
Improving the viability of community care providers
The Government is committing $10.1 million to the initiative to increase the viability supplement paid to eligible rural and remote community care providers by 41 per cent in real terms. About 400 eligible aged care providers in rural and remote areas operating about 6,300 places will receive the increase in the viability supplement.
Extension of the Mental Health Support for Drought Affected Communities Initiative
The Extension of the Mental Health Support for Drought Affected Communities Initiative will provide $5.5 million to enable the continuation of community outreach and crisis counselling for individuals, families and communities who are in distress due to drought. This initiative will raise community awareness of mental illness, promote help-seeking behaviors and increase access to crisis counselling and support, for drought-affected rural and regional communities.
Removal of practice accreditation requirement for General Practitioners (GP) Focused Psychological Strategies services
From 1 July 2010, GPs with appropriate accredited Focused Psychological Strategies skills training will be able to provide Medicare-eligible services in any medical practice, whether or not the practice is accredited. This will improve access for patients in rural and remote areas in particular, where there are lower proportions of accredited GP practices.
COAG Improving Access to Primary Care in Rural and Remote Areas Initiative
The Government is committed to ensure increased access to primary health care services for rural and remote communities experiencing workforce shortages.
The COAG Improving Access to Primary Care in Rural and Remote Areas Initiative recognises that hospitals fulfill a role in meeting primary care needs in these communities. The initiative allows Medicare benefits to be claimed for bulk billed non-admitted non-referred professional services (including nursing, allied and dental services) provided in emergency departments and outpatient clinics at an increased number of eligible small rural hospitals.
Building the Capacity of Australian Sport initiative
The initiative will provide $195.2 million over 4 years to enhance the Australian Sports Commission's (ASC) work with key system partners including state governments and national sporting organizations to deliver comprehensive whole of sport initiatives and build the long term sustainability of the Australian sport system. Its objective is to support the development of a collaborative and sustainable national sports system which will in turn create opportunities for all Australians to participate, excel and to enjoy the benefits of sport and of being physically active.
This initiative will support sport participation rates to influence the overall health of Australians, the capacity and sustainability of national sporting organizations and the significant volunteer labour underpinning the Australian sporting system.
From 2010‑11, this initiative will, amongst other components:
- increase the quality and breadth of delivery of community sport by providing additional coaching and officiating training enabling 45,000 people to access coaching and officiating accreditation programs;
- drive capability and capacity building in 28 sports with an associated impact of up to five community and education initiatives per sport; and
- embed 28 sport management and development experts in 28 sports impacting directly or indirectly on 800,000 Australians.
The measure includes specific participation and sport development strategies which will impact regional communities. The beneficial effects on social cohesion, educational outcomes for young people, and the positive impacts on physical and mental well-being which flow from participation in organised sport and recreation is particularly important in regional areas, where it has always been one of the main cohesive elements that draw people together. Sporting clubs provide a focus within the communities and a sense of community cohesion, particularly in times of economic hardship when other institutions and structures are disappearing.
National Talent Identification and Development Program
The National Talent Identification and Development (NTID) program is designed to help sports identify talented athletes (12 years and older) and prepare them for participation in domestic, national and international competition. The program uses information across all disciplines of sports science to identify young athletes with characteristics associated with elite performance. Once identified, the young athletes are provided with the opportunity to realize their potential in a high-quality talent development program. The NTID program also has project coordinators located at various locations around Australia, including Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane and Adelaide.
Australian University Sport (AUS) closely supports the NTID program through talent assessment centers at regional universities, which provide support to national recruitment and testing initiatives undertaken by NTID.
The Talent Assessment Centre (TAC) network, which has the purpose of extending the reach of the NTID program into regional areas of Australia, has now conducted more than 30 testing sessions on behalf of the NTID program. In addition to this, the development of the fully national, interactive website ETID now extends the metropolitan reach of the NTID program to every corner of Australia that has an internet connection. This works to provide the considerable regional athletic talent residing in this country with another avenue to come to the notice and attention of high performance sport.
Further information
Further information about these and other health and ageing initiatives relating to rural and regional Australia is available at www.health.gov.au.
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