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Annexure C (ii)(d)(sn)

Focus on Prevention Package - Lifestyle Prescriptions background

(i)         introduced in 2003-04 Federal Budget.

(ii)        will help to shift the emphasis within our health system from managing the consequences of illness and disease towards disease prevention and health promotion.

(iii)       includes:

• $4.3m over three years for the Community Awareness and Infrastructure Initiative:
  *    raise awareness of the role of health professionals in prevention, and
  *    build a national approach to lifestyle prescriptions ie. Lifescripts;

• $16.4m over four years for the Primary Care Providers Working Together Initiative to -
  *   support small teams of primary health care providers to come together to identify; and
  *   act on opportunities to reduce lifestyle risk factors, and maintain good health for their patients with chronic conditions; and

• developing a Priority Setting Mechanism for Prevention (cost-neutral) to assess the relative efficiency of a range of alternative disease prevention interventions to better inform decision making.

Community Awareness and Infrastructure

Three-year initiative to enhance the health promotion role of primary care professionals and will build on existing tools such as the Smoking, Nutrition, Alcohol and Physical Activity (SNAP) Framework for General Practice and the Physical Activity Prescription:

• Raise general practice and community awareness of the role of health professionals in prevention.

• Build a national approach to Lifestyle Prescriptions.

• Improve the quality and consistency of patient education materials for GPs and other health professionals to use with Lifestyle Prescriptions.

• Encourage local councils, non-government and voluntary organisations and businesses to provide tailored programs to help people turn prevention messages into action.