Massive health spend delivers mixed results

More than 1-in-1000 deaths in Australia is potentially avoidable, according to newly released data, despite government expenditure on health services reaching the seemingly astronomical figure of $133.6 billion. The actual figure of 105.7 potentially avoidable deaths per 100,000 people was four more than in the previous year (101.2 per 100,000), following annual decreases over the previous nine years.

The rate of potentially avoidable deaths in 2015–2019 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people – whose life expectancy is roughly ten years’ less than non-Indigenous Australians - was more than three times the rate for other people.

The statistics are among those released in the latest Report on Government Services

(ROGS) 2021 compiled by the Australian Government’s Productivity Commission -

Public hospitals comprised the greatest call on funding, at $72.2 billion, followed by primary and community health at $38.7 billion, and ambulance services at $4.2 billion. Expenditure on mental health services totalled $10.0 billion but as much of this expenditure is captured in the public hospital and primary community health expenditure it was not included in the health expenditure total.

The focus on GPs indicated that 11,482 (full time equivalent – 9765) worked in NSW, of the Australian total of 37,472. Surveys of patients showed that 3.7 per cent of the population had delayed or did not visit a GP in the last 12 months due to cost, while 6.6 per cent of the population had delayed filling or did not fill a prescription due to cost.

Nationally, the majority of respondents reported that the GP always or often:

● listened carefully (92.3 percent). ● showed respect (94.6 percent). ● spent enough time with them (90.9 percent).

Dentists were found to have fared somewhat better in each category.

Waiting times for urgent care GP appointments showed that 18.7 percent of people waited longer than they felt was acceptable to get an appointment:-

● 59.4 percent waited less than 4 hours ● 10.8 percent waited from 4 to less than 24 hours

● 29.8 percent waited for 24 hours or more, up from 24% in the past seven years.

In 2019-20, there were around 2.8 million GP-type presentations to Australian public hospital emergency departments.

The most common causes of death among all Australians in 2019 were cancers and diseases of the circulatory system (including heart disease, heart attack and stroke), though rates for both have reduced significantly in the past decade.

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