PRIME MINISTER: G'day folks. I'm here today with Dr Christine Bennett, formerly a CEO of Westmead Hospital in Sydney, but more importantly for us, has just chaired the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission report on the future of the Australian healthcare system.
We've got the report today, and we're going to be debating it in the period ahead. So, Christine, thanks for all your work.
DR. CHRISTINE BENNETT: Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER: It's a big report and we're going to spend a fair bit of time going through the detail with the hospitals around the country, with the states and territories, before we get to a landing point.
What's the big stuff in it for you?
DR. CHRISTINE BENNETT: Well, we're just very excited to have delivered it for you, and I think very important for us was the fact that we had a chance to look at the long term, that we actually looked at the whole system and not just pieces of it, so for us it was a fantastic journey.
The 10 of us learnt from each other, learnt from the things we heard, to come up with the proposals we put forward and we're really thrilled that you're actually going to continue that conversation with people as well.
PRIME MINISTER: I think that's really important. I mean, it's complex. I thought climate change was complex, now healthcare is complex, everything's complex, but the parts always connect into the whole - what you do with GPs connects with what you do with preventative healthcare connects with what you do with hospitals, what you do with aged care, and it's the interconnection of all those things which is part of the complexity, but part of why we've got to fix it.
The thing I liked about the report was this whole concept of connected care, which is if you're an individual Australian, and you're crook, and you've got to navigate your own way through the system, it's really hard, so how do we make that easier for people to find their way through, or to be guided on their way through.
I think turning the whole system on its head so its focussed on the individual, rather than on the system is, I think, one of the core things, at least I've picked up my reading of your report.
DR. CHRISTINE BENNETT: Well, I'm pleased you have, because it really was very central to our thinking. If you put people and families at the centre of you're thinking and not the system and how it connects, but how it connects for the individual, whether that's in an episode of care, or whether people have got a chronic condition like a mental health condition and they've got lots of different people involved in their care, or whether it's through your life time, as you actually go through different life stages, we really want to actually give people themselves a greater say and a greater involvement in the decisions and have all that health care glued together for them.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks for your work with us, but the work hasn't finished yet. We've got to go out there and consult the major hospitals in the country, the other health care providers, the professionals, the doctors, the nurses, and the community, and we'll do that through the second half of the year, so we'll probably need a bit of help as we work our way through some of the major teaching hospitals.
I imagine they're going to have some colourful things to say. It won't all be glowing, but we actually just want to produce solutions. We think that's the right way to go.
DR. CHRISTINE BENNETT: Yeah, well, we certainly enjoyed that consultation. The process was richer for it. You'll hear a lot of things, but I think this will be interesting because they'll now actually be responding to proposals as well, some actual solutions, so we'll see what they thought of our work after having listened to them earlier last year.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, thanks again Christine, and back to you folks. We'd really like to see your contributions to what you'd like to see in the future of health and hospital reform for Australia. It's going to be a big six months, and we'll have to take some big decisions early next year.
Thanks for tuning in.