Health Boards - Health Care (Governance) Amendment Bill 2018

The AMA(SA) provided feedback on the government's Health Care (Governance) Amendment Bill 2018, to the Government, the Opposition and the Greens.

While the AMA(SA) provided feedback on a number of aspects of the Bill, the most critical to the AMA(SA) on first examination was that the proposed Boards should each include at least one member who is a medical practitioner, and that the Board chairs should be medical practitioners. The AMA(SA) also had questions about the accountability structure; flagged issues for regional SA that would need to be addressed; and held that the consultation and engagement strategy provisions needed to be more explicitly inclusive of health professionals who are not working in the hospitals as employees but may have patients attending or referred to it, and health professional and representative organisations.

The Bill merely represents ‘part one’ of a broader program of change; as with most legislation, much will come down to how it is interpreted and applied. The Association's feedback to the Bill was constrained by the short timeframes involved, but the Association looks forward to being engaged in this important area as things progress.

The AMA(SA)'s full initial submission can be found at the link below.