Establishment of AHCRA
In early 2003 negotiations between Federal and State governments were proceeding to determine how much money Canberra would provide the States to help them run their public hospitals. These negotiations occur every five years and produce an Australian Health Care Agreement. At the outset of the deliberations many health professional were telling both State and Federal governments that such a concentration on hospital services was increasingly inappropriate. Australia's health care system has too long been focussed around hospitals, with more overnight beds than many comparable OECD countries. The emphasis should be on better prevention and early diagnosis strategies as well as methods to care for sicker patients in the community rather than hospitals. Indeed Australia needed to look at a raft of healthcare reform issues and the current negotiations should provide that opportunity.
Then Health Minister in NSW, Craig Knowles, championed this approach with his fellow ministers who agreed to establish a number of “reference groups” to pursue reforms in areas such as mental health, indigenous health, workforce etc. This represented a major breakthrough for those who had been urging a way forward that would see the best bureaucratic brains working around the table with clinicians and informed consumers. After two meetings of the reference groups the Federal Government abandoned the reform agenda and made a financial offer to the States, which they saw as inadequate. Healthcare reformists were disappointed, indeed angry at the loss of such an opportunity to correct many of the problems besetting the country’s healthcare system.
The executive of the National Hospitals Clinician’s taskforce (Chaired by Professor John Dwyer AO), an organisation representing medical staff in the nation’s public hospitals, approached a number of organisations involved in promoting changes to our healthcare system to see if they were similarly disappointed and saw merit in forming a powerful alliance of like-minded organisations that would attempt to speak with “one voice” on major reform issues. The response to this initiative was overwhelmingly positive and within three weeks the Australian Health Care Reform Alliance (AHCRA) was born and active. A press conference was called to inform the community of the creation of this organisation and outline the reason for its formation. Healthcare reform must become an urgent priority for all our governments.
The creation of AHCRA produced much public and media interest with the organisation announcing its plan to hold a major national conference on reform in August of 2003, at which the policies needed to provide contemporary Australia with a fair, high quality and economically sustainable health system would be debated with decisions published. The Alliance constantly reminded all interested parties that our current healthcare system was unfair with health outcomes increasingly being related to personal financial wellbeing. From its earliest days the Alliance has been most concerned with the lack of equity in terms of both access to a quality service on the basis of need and the outcomes experienced by so many Australians.
AHCRA is composed of numerous consumer, clinical and academic organisations (see Member Organisations) each concentrating on a particular mission while supporting the common goals of the Alliance. The Alliance is aninformal association of organisations whose representatives are passionate about policy not politics and determined to help introduce urgently needed reforms to benefit the people of Australia. It is now the largest and most cohesive organisation attempting to drive and guide health reform in Australia
The Inaugural 2003 Conference
In August of 2003 the Alliance staged a major conference to examine a raft of reform issues with the countries leading experts in the areas explored assisting an all invited sophisticated audience create a communiqué that represents a manifesto of what the Alliance stands for. The conference was politicised when it was boycotted by the then Federal Minister for Health but attended by a number of health ministers and then Premier of NSW Bob Carr. The conference received wide and supportive media coverage. On the last day the almost 300 delegates marched from Old Parliament House up the hill to the new Parliament building and presented the communiqué to politicians from all parties. Delegates promised to hold a second conference in two years to assess what progress had been made in implementing the policies advocated.
2005 Conference
Details of the 2005 conference can be accessed via the links below.
Conference Workshop proceedings
Conference Communiqué
2007 Conference
AHCRA's Constitution was endorsed by the Executive in January 2007. Please click on the file below to download a copy of the Constitution.
