- Day 1 NACCHO Members’ Conference 2022
- New NACCHO Board with big agenda ahead
- Health Minister opens NACCHO Members’ Conference 2022
The Core Services and Outcomes Framework artwork in the feature tile was created by Kamilaroi artist, Ethan French. The diagram is a visual representation of the Core Services and Outcomes Framework foundations for community-controlled primary health care. At the centre of the diagram is a meeting place which represents members of the community being the heart of this document. Each ring and section of the diagram represents each component of the Core Services and Outcomes Framework, with culture surrounding the whole diagram and foundations, which is a representation showing that culture is involved in all aspects of the Core Services and Outcomes Framework.
Day 1 NACCHO Members’ Conference 2022
On Day 1 of the NACCHO Members’ Conference 2002 NACCHO’s Deputy CEO, Dr Dawn Casey launched a new resource for the sector, the Core Services and Outcomes Framework. Dr Casey explained that in 2019, the NACCHO Board decided it was time for the sector as a whole to communicate their ways of working by producing a Core Services Framework. This proved to be a challenge when attempted by the Department of Health and Aged Care within the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan that commenced in 2013.
When the NACCHO Board instructed NACCHO to address the vacuum NACCHO enlisted expertise from within the sector and obtained extensive feedback from key allies and partner organisations. In its final endorsed form, the Framework shows how the sector integrates community priorities and health care needs in a unique model, combining population health and clinical approaches. The Framework shows how culture wraps around the way community-controlled primary care is directed and the service delivery models used on the ground.
The Core Services and Outcomes Framework is already being used to calculate how to fund the sector to respond to the population it serves, its burden of disease, disadvantage and location.
The Core Services and Outcomes Framework can be accessed via the following:
Artwork: Core Services and Outcomes Framework Model
The Core Services and Outcomes Framework artwork was created by Kamilaroi artist, Ethan French.
The diagram is a visual representation of the Core Services and Outcomes Framework foundations for community-controlled primary health care. At the centre of the diagram is a meeting place which represents members of the community being the heart of this document. Each ring and section of the diagram represents each component of the Core Services and Outcomes Framework, with culture surrounding the whole diagram and foundations, which is a representation showing that culture is involved in all aspects of the Core Services and Outcomes Framework.
A new Board with big agenda ahead
Hon Mark Butler, Minister for Health – representing the Prime Minister – opened the NACCHO Members’ Conference yesterday in Canberra.
Over 500 delegates from Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs) are coming together over three days in Canberra. It is the first major gathering for the sector since the pandemic.
They re-elected Donnella Mills as Chairperson of NACCHO. Ms Mills, a Torres Strait Islander woman, is also the Chair of Wuchopperen Health Service in Cairns and works as a Senior Associate at King & Wood Mallesons, an international law firm. She said, ‘I was honoured to be elected for a second term by our deadly ACCHOs across the country for another term.’ She, along with her Broome-based Deputy, Chris Bin Kali, will lead a Board of 16 directors in addressing a big agenda in front of them.
‘We have a challenging agenda ahead. I took the opportunity to say to Minister Butler that, while we understand that the new Government has a thankless task ahead of itself in repairing the Budget and guiding the country through a period of fiscal restraint, we still need to ensure that the health funding gap for First Nations communities does not widen. Our health funding cannot slip further behind.’
‘So, our challenge – when the Budget well is dry – is threefold. First, we must maximise what funding we do have to best effect. Second, we must get a fairer share of existing mainstream funding. Third, we need to implement structural reform in line with the priority reforms of the new National Agreement on Closing the Gap’.
NACCHO commissioned Equity Economics earlier this year to estimate the health funding gap. They found in their report that the gap is a staggering $4.4b per year. That is, over $5,000 per year for every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person in Australia. Ms Mills said, ‘We have the data. The gap is real. Yet dangerous myths prevail that Aboriginal programs are over-funded.’
The next two days will be spent at the NACCHO conference by delegates from most of the major Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia. They will hear presentations from experts in the Pilbara, the west coast of SA, and Ballina NSW (on the impact of the floods). There will also be presentations from the Kimberley, the Northern Territory and Yarrabah on efforts against acute rheumatic fever as well as by experts and leaders ranging from Pat Anderson, Fran Baum, Mary Belfrage, Alex Brown, Kelvin Kong, Tamara Mackean, Seth Westhead, and many more. The event is being MC-ed by Dan Bourchier.
To read NACCHO’s media release A new NACCHO board with a big agenda ahead in full click here.
Donnella Mills at the 2022 NACCHO Members’ Conference yesterday.
Health Minister opens NACCHO Member’s Conference 2022
Yesterday, Minister for Health and Aged Care, the Hon. Mark Butler officially opened the NACCHO Members’ Conference 2022. Minister Butler’s opening remarks included:
National Convention Centre Canberra, 18 October 2022
- Good afternoon. Thank you Donnella and Pat for welcoming me here today.
- I would like to acknowledge we meet today on the land of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people and pay my respects to the elders, past, present and to our emerging leaders.
- It is a pleasure to be here on behalf of the Prime Minister who was regrettably unable to attend this event.
- Many of those emerging First Nations leaders have attended your youth conference here over the past day. I hope they found this opportunity to be beneficial and formed new connections.
- It is great to see our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth participating in these forums and interacting with each other and sharing their unique cultural learnings and understandings; bringing forward their culture and their identity to be part of a better and informed future.
Picture: Gary Ramage NACCHO Chair Donnella Mills with Minister for Health and Aged Care, the Hon. Mark Butler at the NACCHO Members’ Conference 2022.
Health Ministers’ Meeting
- Just over a week ago, it was great to be able to reconvene what we call the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander roundtable for health – bringing together all the Health Ministers from States and Territories and the Commonwealth along with representatives from across the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled and health sector leadership.
- The Roundtable has been unable to meet recently, and it was a priority for this government to convene it as quickly as possible following our election.
- The Roundtable was important for highlighting the challenges in workforce, in service delivery, in embedding culturally safe practices across the health system.
- All health ministers have prioritised this work, including the Commonwealth through myself and Assistant Minister Malarndirri McCarthy.
Puggy Hunter
- One way that the Commonwealth Government can lead in this work is to take real steps to implement the letter and the spirit of the Coalition of Peaks Priority Reforms.
- Priority Reform 2 emphasises the role of the community-controlled health sector, and the role of governments in building and strengthening the sector.
- This is a critical area for this government to build and grow. The work of ACCHOs around the country isn’t just a model for First Nations health, it’s a model for the whole health sector.
- It’s why I have directed the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care to audit all programs delivering services to First Nations communities that are not currently being delivered by First Nations organisations.
- It’s why I announced last week that the Puggy Hunter Scholarship Scheme – our leading program encouraging entry-level Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health students to complete their studies and join the health workforce – needed to be handed over to First Nations control.
- For me, there couldn’t be a more important first step in this process. Dr Arnold ‘Puggy’ Hunter was of course an incredible health leader and Chair of NACCHO.
- Our ambition is to transition more programs to First Nations control over the course of this government.
You can download Minister Butler’s speech in full here.