Cuts in payments to doctors for after-hours services announced today stand to reduce unnecessarily high-cost services but also run the risk of reducing access to care for those patients and families in urgent need, the Consumers Health Forum says. “The Government is seeking to reduce the use of...

chfadha.jpg Health consumers are central to the design and delivery of a digital transformed health sector and the ongoing development of My Health Record, a digital system that enables improved safety and quality of patient care. A Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Australian Digital...

A new report showing that public patients wait twice as long for elective surgery as private patients do in public hospitals raises serious questions about equity of access to care. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report into statistics on private health insurance patients in...

The Consumers Health Forum welcomes the tighter regulation of pelvic mesh implants and calls for the introduction of a mandatory register to record problems with implants so that action is initiated at the earliest opportunity to reduce risk of harm to other patients. The Therapeutic Goods...

The rapid development in the potency and complexity of medical devices, while offering great advances in medical care also presents growing challenges to safety and quality, the Consumers Health Forum says. The latest edition of the Consumers Health Forum’s journal , Health Voices , published today...

Latest figures on the diet and lifestyle of Australia’s children signal a troubling future for their health unless governments implement an effective national response , the Consumers Health Forum says. “The Australia’s Health Tracker statistics released today should disturb us all as they indicate...

The Health Care Homes initiative being trialled by the Federal Government offers the potential for significantly improved, integrated, 21 st century care in general practice so it is disappointing to hear reports that public awareness about it remains low, the Consumers Health Forum says. The...

Latest figures showing consumers are paying out more than ever to health funds and doctors, make it more important than ever for the Government’s proposed out-of-pocket costs project to result in a better deal for patients, the Consumers Health Forum says. The Australian Prudential Regulation...

Australian hospitals need to release more records on patient safety and treatment outcomes in the interests of driving better care, the Consumers Health Forum says. A new report issued today (Wednesday) by the Grattan Institute, finds that while hospitals routinely collect large amounts of data on...

Key medical, hospital pharmacy and consumer groups are disappointed with the lack of public commitment shown by Health Ministers to uniformly back the Therapeutic Goods Administration decision to upschedule codeine-containing products to prescription-only from 1 February 2018.