Cate Swannell

The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing has overhauled how it will measure Primary Health Network performance, increased its Support at Home target and reset key NDIS measures in its new corporate plan.

The department says it did not model the impact of its private health rebate changes specifically on age pensioners, conducting new analysis only after stakeholders raised concerns about the policy.

GPs should be able to directly refer older patients for basic home support without putting them through the full My Aged Care assessment process, under a CHSP Alliance proposal aimed at restoring primary care to the front end of aged care.

Former Productivity Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald has credited successful sector advocacy with overturning a decade of policy thinking that threatened the Commonwealth Home Support Program.

The health department has laid out a decade-long digital investment agenda spanning health, disability and aged care as it moves to a multi-vendor ICT model and builds its internal AI capability.

Health spending will consume an increasingly large share of the NSW economy over the next 40 years, with older people accounting for more than half of all health activity.

Sector leaders say the government's decision to retain the Commonwealth Home Support Program has not solved chronic underfunding, an invisible waiting list, or increasingly complex demand.

Plus news from Grampians Health, SA Health, and more. Plus news from Grampians Health, SA Health, and more. This content is for paid subscribers only.

The operating model established to deliver NSW Health's single digital patient record will be reworked as the troubled program moves through its statewide rollout.

The government says its controversial PHI rebate changes are fairer, economically sound and necessary to fund aged care. All without knowing 1.2 million pensioners would be affected.