The 2026-2031 NHRA Addendum also commits the Commonwealth, state and territory governments to reforms that strengthen patient choice and informed financial consent.
RACS agrees in principle with the proposed NHRA reforms. These reforms are aimed at improving patient choice, ensuring integrity in funding and providing national consistency for the provision of public and private hospital care to patients. However, RACS believes that surgical care is complex due to the existence of multiple providers, locations and different funding arrangements, therefore RACS believes the proposed reforms must be flexible and supported by clinical rationale. RACS supports limiting the number of mixed funding arrangements and strengthening the Governance of Rights of Private Practice (RoPP). At the same time, RACS does not support transferring the administration of mixed funding arrangements to surgeons, placing limitations on valid patient movement between the public and private health systems or creating barriers to gaining access to surgical care, especially for those patients who reside in rural and regional areas.
The College's submission also requests that clear national guidelines, assurances regarding the protection of informed financial consent as part of clinical responsibility and strong data governance standards for data collected are utilised in making clinical decisions. Additionally, the implementation of these principles (i.e., patient care and clinical judgment) should take precedence over administrative requirements.