As part of the $2 billion Health and Hospitals Reform Plan, a Rudd Labor Government will invest $220 million in the health system to establish GP Super Clinics in local communities — bolstering frontline health care for Australian families.

Labor’s GP Super Clinics plan will help get doctors and other health professionals into areas that need them most, working together to meet the new service delivery challenges of modern medicine. The plan will provide infrastructure funding for general practitioners and other health professionals, including allied health workers, nurses and some specialists, to work together in the one place, providing a greater range of quality services in local communities — and much greater convenience for patients. The clinics will be tailored to the needs of local communities and particularly targeted to rural, regional and outer urban areas where Medicare has not been utilised to its fullest extent because of workforce shortages.

Along with incentives to pay for administrative and nursing support, funds can be used to provide teaching rooms and facilities to make the GP Super Clinics attractive to new graduates, trainees and GP registrars — encouraging health workers into regions where there are currently workforce shortages. With 65% of Australia affected by a GP workforce shortage, initiatives that encourage doctors to train and work in underserviced areas are crucial to the long-term sustainability of our health system. By having renovated or purpose-built facilities that allow space for group sessions and a range of staff, the GP Super Clinics will have a particular focus on assisting people to stay well or to better manage existing chronic conditions.

Labor’s GP Super Clinics will:

• Help take the pressure off hospitals;

• Provide a greater focus for tackling the challenge of chronic disease in local communities;

• Attract medical graduates and health professionals to areas of need; and

• Mean much greater convenience for patients.

Currently, about 2300 older Australians who have been assessed as needing residential aged care are waiting in hospital wards. Some have waited months for a bed in a nursing home. This is tough on families, and also means that much needed hospital beds are not available to Australians of all ages waiting for surgery or medical treatment.

A Rudd Labor Government will help older Australians waiting in hospital wards to get an aged care bed or to return home sooner. This will ensure that older Australians get more appropriate care, and that significant pressure is taken off our hospital system.

Under Federal Labor’s initiative, $158 million will be invested over the next 5 years to create up to 2000 transition care beds for older Australians who are currently waiting in hospital for an aged care bed and to allow others to return to their home. Federal Labor will also provide $300 million of loans at zero real interest rates to aged care providers to make up to 2500 permanent residential aged care beds available sooner to older Australians.

For the past year, Federal Labor has been arguing to move prevention to the centre, not the margins, of our health system. A Rudd Labor Government will treat preventive health care as a first-order economic challenge, as well as a health issue — because failure to do so will have a long-term negative impact on workforce participation, growth in productivity and the overall health budget.

A Rudd Labor Government has committed to:

• Develop a National Preventative Health Strategy to provide a blueprint for tackling the burden of chronic disease, with an initial focus on obesity, tobacco and excessive consumption of alcohol. The Strategy will be supported by an expert taskforce.

• Shift the focus from so-called “6-minute medicine” in general practice by beginning a reform process to provide incentives for GPs to practise quality preventive health care, including longer consultations;

• Broaden the focus of the major health care agreement between the Commonwealth and the states and territories beyond hospital funding by developing a National Preventative Health Care Partnership; and

• In its first term, commission the Treasury to produce a series of definitive reports on the impact of chronic disease on the Australian economy, and the economic benefits of a greater focus on prevention in health care.

A focus on prevention would mean nothing without attention to the health of Australian children. There can be no better investment in Australia’s future. By ensuring that children are able to develop healthy habits early in life, we take a significant step forward in our battle against chronic diseases.

We have committed Labor to some major initiatives for children:

• All children starting school will receive a health and early skills assessment. The Healthy Kids Check will include an assessment of a child’s basic health, such as teeth, hearing, balance and sight.

• The Australian Early Development Index will be rolled out from 2008. This rigorous checklist, covering five key aspects of children’s development, will assess how Australian children are faring when they reach school age.

• A Healthy Habits for Life guide will provide practical information to help parents assist their children to develop healthy habits for life.

• $12.8 million will be provided to establish the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program in 190 primary schools across Australia. The program will tackle the rising trend of childhood obesity by giving children hands-on experience in healthy eating: teaching them how to grow, harvest and cook produce, as part of the school curriculum.

• $1.7 million will fund research that brings together the lessons learned from community obesity prevention projects, analyses the data to determine which projects work, and shares this knowledge with other communities who want to be involved in similar initiatives.

• $3.5 million will be provided to develop and distribute guidelines on healthy eating and physical activity in early childhood settings.

This package forms the start of the comprehensive approach needed to tackle children’s health and the particular issues with childhood obesity.

Investment under Labor’s $2 billion National Health and Hospitals Reform Plan will prioritise areas where need is greatest, based on indicators that include workforce shortages and poor infrastructure. Those areas will include many rural and remote areas of Australia, as we have noted with our GP Super Clinics plan.

The Reform Commission will have the task of developing a long-term rural health strategy. Federal Labor believes it is worth considering in this process whether the next Australian Health Care Agreements should include a rural health service commitment. It is time to consolidate and invest in existing successes, not to continue with more and more pilot programs.

Consistent with this approach, Federal Labor will reform the Rural Medical Infrastructure Fund, expanding its eligibility and raising its funding cap to ensure more communities can access this important source of funding.

A Rudd Labor Government has committed to closing the 17-year gap in life expectancy at birth between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people within a generation.

Labor will make a $260 million down-payment on this commitment with our investment in Indigenous early childhood health. This initiative will ensure that Indigenous women have access to:

• Proper antenatal care (including a visit to a midwife or doctor, an ultrasound examination and a general health check);

• Practical advice on parenting, breastfeeding and nutrition for their babies;

• Home visit services for new Indigenous mothers and children aged 0–8 years (in conjunction with the states and territories).

Labor has announced the first instalment of its plan to establish a Commonwealth Dental Health Program and will fund up to one million additional dental consultations and treatments for Australians needing dental care.

Federal Labor will invest up to $290 million in a Commonwealth Dental Health Program — one of the first programs scrapped by the Howard Government in 1996.

The Howard Government’s Medicare Chronic Disease Management scheme has failed to help the hundreds of thousands languishing on dental waiting lists. Over the past 3 years, it has helped only 7000 people, owing to its complex eligibility and referral criteria. The complexity of the referral process has also overloaded GPs with even more red tape, creating more work for doctors who are already under pressure.

As part of Federal Labor’s determination to take national leadership and end the blame game in health, our funding will be available for the states and territories to help clear the backlog at public dental clinics. They will either supplement their existing services or purchase private-sector appointments for the hundreds of thousands stuck on their waiting lists.

Our dental plan is a significant investment in making health care more affordable for Australians. We know that rising health costs under the Howard Government are a challenge for many families, and we will work to tackle this situation. Because we realise that many family budgets now rely on them, we support the private health insurance rebates and the Medicare Safety Net.