The Tasmanian Minister for Health, Michelle O’Byrne, outlined a major restructure of the state’s health system, with an overhaul of the Department of Health and a 25 per cent reduction in its work force.

 

Ms O’Byrne said that 124 positions of a total of 150 had been identified as part of the cuts.

Ms O’Byrne said as well as delivering significant budget savings, the streamlining of the Department was part of the transition to the new model, which comes into effect on July 1.

 

Aspects of the restructure, developed by Secretary Matthew Daly, include:

  • creation of the three THOs from July 1 with accountability that matches their new devolved responsibility;
  • transfer of some major functions to the newly-created THOs;
  • transfer of budgets and accountabilities to the THOs;
  • devolution of a number business functions to THOs;
  • shrinking the bureaucracy and ensuring decisions about the delivery of health services are made at the local level;
  • launching a red-tape review to look at further identifying and eliminating waste; and
  • reducing the size of the Senior Executive Service by 10 per cent.

 

Ms O‘Byrne said it had been a challenging year in health as the Government moved to respond to steeply rising costs and declining revenue while preparing for major reform.

 

“I want to thank all patients, clients and DHHS employees who have understood the need to rein in health spending.

 

“Under the Labor Government, the number of doctors and nurses has increased steadily year by year and in the five years to 2011, we reduced the size of the bureaucracy by five per cent.”

 

Ms O’Byrne said discussions on the details of the restructure were planned with employees and unions over coming weeks.