THE Federal Government's plan to takeover hospital management has been welcomed by a local businessman, formerly on a community board that oversees the running of Redland Hospital.
Birkdale resident Bob Bishop is the managing director of communications company TTGroup and volunteered as a representative of the business community on the Bayside Health Community Council for nine years, chairing the committee for six.
The council is responsible for managing the complaints system, educating members of the community on how to get the best out of the health system and communicating the needs of community groups back to management at Redland Hospital, Wynnum Hospital, Moreton Bay Nursing Care Unit and Bay Islands.
Mr Bishop said while the government's policy did not introduce any new funding for hospitals, from a business point of view, centralising management in Canberra and the 150 proposed regional hubs would improve efficiency and generate savings to spend on more medical staff.
"We now have the ability to manage distant businesses from a central location using the latest technologies, so it makes a lot of sense to have a central national standard for our hospitals, managed from one central location and fund," Mr Bishop said.
"When it comes down to the day to day, operational running of the hospital... a competent and efficient administration and operational staff, not ruling out a 'private administrator', could roll out a national masterplan.
"Hospital boards play a valuable role in advising and providing support and community feedback, but they need to be paid positions, not voluntary, otherwise they're too much of a burden for members who are likely to have demanding day jobs."
The proposal would be funded by the Federal Government revoking 30 per cent of the GST distributed to the states and see current federal spending on health - about $64 billion - redirected from the state governments to the health networks.
Mr Bishop said Redland Hospital and Mater Private Hospital, Redlands already had resource-sharing arrangements for specialist staff and equipment that would be strengthened by the government's suggestion that private hospitals take public patients waiting for treatment longer than set benchmarks, although guidelines would need to be "nailed down" to protect revenue for both hospitals.
He also said Redland Hospital would be unlikely to lose funding if the Federal Government's proposal withdrew funding from successful hospitals and directed it to those more in need.
"I think Redland Hospital would get a favourable hearing in the national scheme. It's a growth community with growing demands that are increasing exponentially and not going away and I think investment would keep pace with the need," he said.
"If the resources are all in one big pot and there is a good communications process to keep information flowing to and from it will work - at the moment everyone is just surviving on lots of small pots."
He also said in his experience, the federal health department was well up to the challenges of rolling out a national program, with "some of the best national professional healthcare workers in the world".
Federal Member for Bowman, Andrew Laming, said the recent experience of the home insulation scheme showed the flaws of federal centralisation.
"This policy does nothing to help aged patients who are taking up hospital beds because they can't get an aged care place, (or) under serviced emergency departments that force people to access commonwealth funded Medicare services," said Dr Laming, an ophthalmologist.
"The Coalition's proposal for local hospital boards which would see real medical professionals in charge is far superior to yet another layer of bureaucrats who already infest the health system."
The national scheme would be phased in over four years, starting on July 1 next year.
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