” This eighth national report presents information from 277 organisations, funded by the Australian Government to provide one or more of the following health services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: primary health care; maternal and child health care; social and emotional wellbeing services; and substance-use services.
These organisations contributed to the 2015–16 Online Services Report downloadable.
Good News see in full below
Many health promotion group activities were provided, including around 7,600 physical activity/healthy weight sessions, 3,300 chronic disease support sessions and 2,000 tobacco-use treatment and prevention sessions.
With respect to maternal and child health care, around 12,900 home visits, 3,300 maternal and baby/child health sessions, 2,800 parenting skills sessions and 1,000 antenatal group sessions were done.
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NACCHO AIHW Aboriginal Health Organisations 2015-16
Information is presented on the characteristics of these organisations; the services they provide; client numbers, contacts and episodes of care; staffing levels; and service gaps and challenges.
Key characteristics
Of the 204 organisations providing Indigenous primary health-care services:
- 72% (147) delivered services from 1 site, while 11% (23) had 2 sites and 17% (34) had 3 or more sites.
- 67% (136) were ACCHOs.
- 78% (159) had a governing committee or board and of these 72% had 100% Indigenous membership.
- 79% (162) were accredited against the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) and/or organisational standards.
- 28% (57) had more than 3,000 clients (see Table S3.2).
Policy context : The health of Indigenous Australians
An estimated 744,956 Australians identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander in June 2016, representing 3% of the total Australian population (ABS 2014). In 2011, 10% of the Indigenous population identified as being of Torres Strait Islander origin, and almost two-thirds of the Torres Strait Islander population lived in Queensland.
The Indigenous population has a younger age structure compared with the non-Indigenous population.
In June 2011, the median age of the Indigenous population (the age at which half the population is older and half is younger) was 21.8, compared with 37.6 for the non-Indigenous population.
The birth rate for Indigenous women is also higher (2.3 babies per woman in 2013 compared with 1.9 for all women) (AIHW 2015d).
Most Indigenous Australians live in non-remote areas (79% in 2011); however, a higher proportion live in remote areas (21%), compared with non-Indigenous Australians (2%)
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The gap in health outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is well documented, especially around life expectancy, infant mortality, child mortality, chronic disease prevalence, potentially preventable hospitalisations and the burden of disease (AIHW 2015a).
For example, a recent burden of disease study found that Indigenous Australians experienced a burden of disease 2.3 times the rate of non-Indigenous Australians, with diabetes 6 times as high.
Chronic diseases were responsible for more than two-thirds (70%) of the total health gap in 2011 and for 64% of the total disease burden among Indigenous Australians in 2011.
The 5 disease groups that caused the most burden were mental and substance use disorders (19% of total disease burden), injuries (which includes suicide) (15%), cardiovascular diseases (12%), cancer (9%) and respiratory diseases (8%).
The same study also suggests that much of this burden could be prevented and reducing exposure to modifiable risk factors may have prevented over one-third (37%) of the burden of disease in Indigenous Australians.
The risk factors contributing most to the overall disease burden were tobacco and alcohol use, high body mass, physical inactivity, high blood pressure and dietary factors (AIHW 2016a).
While there have been improvements in the health and wellbeing of Indigenous Australians, they remain disadvantaged compared with non-Indigenous Australians.
There are a number of interlinking issues that contribute to this gap, including the disadvantages Indigenous people experience in relation to the social determinants of health such as housing, education, employment and income; behavioural risk factors such as smoking, poor nutrition, and physical inactivity; and access to health services (AIHW 2015a).
In addition, a broader range of social and emotional wellbeing issues result from colonisation and its intergenerational legacies: grief and loss; trauma; removal from family and cultural dislocation; racism and discrimination (DoH 2013).
Policy responses
In 2008 a framework was developed to tackle Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage, with 6 targets established to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. These targets were agreed with all states and territories through the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).
National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan
Following on from the COAG targets, the Australian Government worked with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to produce the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan 2013–2023.
This sets out a 10-year plan for the direction of Indigenous health policy and provides a long-term, evidence-based policy framework to close the gap in Indigenous disadvantage.
The vision outlined in the Health Plan around health system effectiveness is that the Australian health system delivers primary health care that is evidence-based, culturally safe, high quality, responsive and accessible to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (DoH 2013).
An Implementation Plan sits alongside the Health Plan, detailing the actions to be taken by the Australian Government and other key stakeholders to implement the Health Plan (DoH 2015b).
It identifies 20 goals to support the achievement of the COAG targets around the effectiveness of the health system and priorities across the life course, from maternal health and parenting, childhood health and development, adolescent and youth health, healthy adults and healthy ageing.
A technical companion document to the Implementation Plan outlines these goals and how they will be measured (AIHW 2015b).
The second stage of the Implementation Plan will be released in 2018 and will further develop actions and goals in the domain of social and cultural determinants of health and health system effectiveness.
It will also seek to increase engagement between Australian Government agencies, state, territory and local governments, the Aboriginal community-controlled health sector, the non-government sector and the corporate/private sector (DoH 2017).
Progress on achieving the Implementation Plan goals will be reported every two years in line with the release of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework. The findings will be incorporated into the Department of Health’s Annual Report and will inform the Prime Minister’s annual Closing the Gap report. Progress on the goals will also be publically reported on the DoH and AIHW websites from mid-2017 (DoH 2015b).
The good news
• In 2015–16, 204 organisations provided a wide range of primary health-care services to around 461,500 clients through 3.9 million episodes of care. Over 1 million episodes of care (26%) were in Very remote areas and these areas had the highest average number of episodes of care per client (10). Over time there has been an increase in the average episodes of care per client, from 5 in 2008–09 to 8 in 2015–16.
• Around 7,766 full-time equivalent staff were employed and just over half (53%) were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. Nurses and midwives were the most common type of health worker, representing 15% of employed staff, followed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workers and practitioners (13%) and doctors (7%). Nurses and midwives represented a higher proportion of employed staff in Very remote areas (24%).
• Many health promotion group activities were provided, including around 7,600 physical activity/healthy weight sessions, 3,300 chronic disease support sessions and 2,000 tobacco-use treatment and prevention sessions. With respect to maternal and child health care, around 12,900 home visits, 3,300 maternal and baby/child health sessions, 2,800 parenting skills sessions and 1,000 antenatal group sessions were done.
• In the 93 organisations funded specifically to provide social and emotional wellbeing services, 216 counsellors provided support services or Link Up services to around 18,900 clients through 88,900 client contacts.
• In the 80 organisations funded specifically to provide substance-use services, around 32,700 clients were seen through 170,400 episodes of care. Most clients (81%) and episodes of care (87%) were for non-residential substance-use services.
Things to note
• Over half the organisations providing primary health-care services reported mental health/social and emotional wellbeing services as a service gap (54%), and two-thirds (67%) reported the recruitment, training and support of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff as a challenge in delivering quality health services.
• Some organisations felt clients with high needs had to wait too long for some services, in particular to access specialist and dental services. For example, 53 (28%) organisations providing on-site or off-site access to dental services still felt clients with high needs often had to wait a clinically unacceptable time for dental services.
For most specialist and allied health services, more organisations in Remote and Very remote areas felt clients with high needs had to wait too long to access services.