The entire July 28, 2021 edition of The Weekly Advertiser is available online. READ IT HERE!

The entire July 28, 2021 edition of AgLife is available online. READ IT HERE!

Western Victorian health-service boards pushing for a four-way merger will need to convince Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley the move has strong community backing.

Mr Foley made it clear in a letter to health-board chairs in May that voluntary mergers could only proceed with government support ‘only where extensive community consultation and due diligence has occurred and there is clear community benefit and backing’.

A proposal between Wimmera Health Care Group, Stawell Regional Health, Edenhope and District Memorial Hospital and Ballarat Health Services to merge and create a ‘Grampians’ health services has polarised public opinion.

Leaders of respective boards have spoken strongly about how a merger would improve regional health services and outlined how their decision had come from consultation and due-diligence activities.

But thousands of people have signed a petition against a move involving Wimmera and Ballarat services.

West Wimmera Health Service and Rural Northwest Health are not part of the merger proposal.

Mr Foley’s letter, dated May 21, was based on development of Health Service Partnerships in meeting state priorities.

Here is the letter –

With Victoria having recently marked a full year since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the community, I am writing to all board chairs on the future of the ‘cluster’ model developed as part of the pandemic response, and to set out my key priorities for the coming year.

First however, I would like to express my gratitude for all the work your health service has done for Victorians over the past year – the most turbulent in recent memory. 

It is no small thing to steer a health service through a pandemic, and I would like to congratulate your organisation on the way it has risen to the challenge of doing so, while continuing to deliver world class care for your community all the while.

The pandemic impacted our system in challenging new ways, bringing to the fore the difficulty our health services in Victoria can face in tackling systemic problems while working in isolation. It also highlighted how much more resilient our system is when we work together.

We saw examples of this emerging during the pandemic – with health services increasingly supporting each other through ICU planning and load-balancing, aged-care outbreak responses and staff furloughs. 

This collaboration provides the foundations of a new and better way of working in the future. 

The deep connections health services have with their local communities have already given Victoria one of the strongest health systems in Australia; collaborative connections between health services on pressing strategic priorities showed how our system could become stronger still.

To this end, health-service collaboration will remain an enduring feature of the Victorian health system.

Recognising the many competing uses of this term, the name ‘cluster’ will be retired and replaced by Health Service Partnerships.

All health services will be expected to fully participate in their Health Service Partnerships in the years to come. 

The Health Service Partnerships model preserves the local autonomy and responsibility of health services. 

There will be no changes to the existing roles and reporting lines of health-service chief executives and their boards, which will remain independent entities.

Health services will continue to retain responsibility for their performance against Statements of Priorities, including management of budget and finances, along with clinical service delivery and clinical governance.

There will be no change to the process for health services undertaking amalgamations, which will remain wholly voluntary processes instigated and led by health services, proceeding with government support only where extensive community consultation and due diligence has occurred and there is clear community benefit and backing.

While preserving local autonomy, the Health Service Partnerships model will require health services to work together on the system priorities that are too large or complex to be solved as quickly or well by health services working in isolation.

 In 2021-22 this will include:

• Ongoing co-ordination and leadership of our pandemic response, continuing to build on both the successes and lessons of 2020; 

• Improving elective surgery and emergency care access as we recover from the pandemic, including delivery of the Victorian government’s $300- million Elective Surgery Blitz;

• Implementing the Victorian government’s $120.9-million Better at Home initiative, giving more Victorians the opportunity to receive their hospital care at home; 

• Supporting the implementation of relevant recommendations from the historic Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System.

Health Service Partnerships will of course have full discretion to choose other local priorities and I am pleased to hear that a number of partnerships are already progressing these.

In addition to the above project funding, each Health Service Partnership will be provided with transitional funding to support their establishment over the next several years.

I am pleased to announce the Victorian government has committed $12.31-million from 2021-22 to support the establishment of Health Service Partnerships, including $965,255 for each partnership in 2021-22.

Martin Foley MP

Minister for Health

Minister for Ambulance Services

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