Promoting a healthy lifestyle and helping Australians stay healthy

Prevention of health problems through education, screening, and health promotion is an

integral part of the Australian Government's approach to delivering health services.

The 2004-2005 Federal Budget contains a number of measures to promote healthy lifestyles

and reduce risk factors, such as excessive drinking and inappropriate use of medicines.  It also

provides additional support to help people with existing conditions in their daily lives.

Subsidy of new generation insulin infusion pump consumables through the National Diabetes Services

Scheme

Australian Government funding under the National Diabetes Services Scheme (NDSS) will

increase by up to $15.3 million over four years to ensure Australians affected by diabetes are

better able to manage their condition.

The Government will subsidise the cost of consumables for new generation infusion pumps.

These will be available to people up to 18 years of age, adults with Type 1 diabetes with a

history of severe episodes of high or low blood sugar levels, women with gestational diabetes

or those who have problems with their diabetes in pregnancy.

Insulin pump therapy is the only option for people who are unable to adequately control

diabetes with regular daily insulin injections. This treatment improves the health and quality

of life and reduces the risk of long-term complications.

The decision to subsidise these products from 1 September 2004 under the National Diabetes

Services Scheme will mean the cost of managing an individual's diabetes will be significantly

reduced.

National Illicit Drug Strategy

The Government remains committed to reducing the availability, uptake and use of illicit

drugs in Australia. Reaffirming this commitment, the Government has allocated $439.6

million over four years for the continuation of a range of measures under the National Illicit

Drug Strategy ‘Tough on Drugs’.

This announcement ensures that current efforts are sustained, including the diversion of minor

drug offenders into treatment. It also enables long term strategies to be maintained to respond

to illicit drug priorities, in particular the public health challenges faced by the increased

availability and use of psychostimulants and the need to improve treatment outcomes for drug

users with concurrent mental health issues (comorbidity).

The National Illicit Drug strategy is a partnership between the health and ageing portfolio and

the justice and customs, education, science and training, and family and community services

portfolios. Continued funding under the strategy has also been provided to these portfolios in

this budget.

Investment in preventive health measures

The Australian Government remains strongly committed to providing a range of preventive

including:

• free annual influenza vaccinations for all Australians over 65 years of age;

• implementation of the National Injury Prevention Plan;

• continued funding to the National Cancer Control Initiative to provide expert advice,

identify appropriate initiatives, and make specific recommendations on prevention,

detection, treatment and palliation;

• support for the National Tobacco campaign and the National Tobacco strategy

• ongoing implementation of the National Environment Health Strategy;

• continued funding for the Centre for Excellence in Male Sexual and Reproductive Health;

and

• improving the evidence base to support preventive health measures.

The measure will involve funding of $98 million over four years.

Increase funding for Cochlear speech processor upgrades for children

The Australian Government has committed $7.6 million over four years to provide Australian

Hearing with additional funding for Cochlear speech implant upgrades for children.

Australian Hearing currently provides Cochlear speech processor upgrades for approximately

80 children each year.

The increase in funding will provide up to 300 profoundly deaf children with complex

hearing needs with an upgrade to their existing Cochlear speech processor in the first year,

depending on needs. Up to 200 children may receive upgrades annually in subsequent years.

Re-affirming a commitment to the early detection of bowel cancer

The Australian Government has re-affirmed its commitment to the early detection of bowel

cancer by providing an additional $7.4 million over four years to continue work undertaken in

the Bowel Cancer Screening Pilot.

This funding will also support investigation into the benefits and logistics of establishing a

national bowel screening program.

This commitment builds on the 2000-2001 Budget announcement of $7.2 million over four

years to conduct a Bowel Cancer Screening Pilot program.

These funds will assist Australians who still require care and treatment after bowel cancer

was detected as a result of participating in the pilot program, and will also ensure that the

Government has a sound information base for informed decision-making on a national

screening program.

The preliminary results of the pilot program have been very encouraging. Early results also

showed that more than 30 suspected cases of bowel cancer in people who had no signs or

symptoms of the disease have been detected through the program.

Bowel cancer claims the lives of approximately 90 Australians every week. It is the most

common internal cancer affecting Australians and the second-highest cause of cancer related

deaths, behind lung cancer.

Financial assistance for Australians with inborn errors of metabolism

As part of the Australian Government’s ongoing commitment to assisting Australians with

inborn errors of metabolism, the 2004-2005 Budget contains continued funding for

Australians who can not metabolise certain foods and must replace regular foods with special

dietary items.

Since it began, the Inborn Errors of Metabolism Program has provided assistance to around

700 Australians through the provision of a monthly grant of $200. This measure ($11.8

million over four years) builds on the last four years commitment, and the grant will be

indexed to ensure that the current monthly payment is maintained against the cost of living.

This important measure eases the financial burden for Australians who need to purchase

protein modified foods to avoid serious medical complications when regular food is

consumed.

Supporting high quality information on women’s health

The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH) is a high quality source of

information about the health and wellbeing of women in Australia.

The Australian Government has committed $3.2 million over four years to continue the work

of this survey, which commenced in 1995.

ALSWH examines social, behavioural and economic determinants of health and their

relationship to health outcomes and the use of health services at key points in women’s lives.

The study also tracks entry and exit from the workforce and the reasons for these changes,

including their relationship to good health.

This measure will allow monitoring of the health impact of other social and economic

developments such as expected shortages in the workforce over the next 30 years.

Research findings will also be used to plan strategies for prevention and early intervention to

reduce health risk factors, preventable morbidity and avoidable mortality among Australian

women.

Health policy is critically dependant on identifying the causes of disease and its distribution in

the community, and on identifying risk factors leading to illness and opportunities for

prevention or early intervention.

Additional funding support to enhance telephone counselling services for Australians

The Australian Government will provide $10 million in 2003-2004 to assist with the

refurbishment and upgrade of Lifeline Australia’s telephone and computer systems. Further

to this, in recognition of the importance of telephone counselling services for young people,

the Government will provide $2 million to Kids Help Line to allow the service to recruit and

train more volunteers and maintain their infrastructure.

As a result of problems with Lifeline’s current telecommunications system only 21 per cent of

calls to Lifeline’s 24 hour counselling number are successful and upgrade work is required to

address this situation.

The funding made available by the Government will enable Life Line Australia to upgrade

it’s telecommunications facilities to a computer based system that will attend to the present

short comings of it’s system and greatly enhance the services that it provides for all

Australians.

Kids Help Line is a free 24 hour telephone counselling service available every day of the year

to Australia’s 3.8 million young people aged between 5 and 18 years. The additional funding

made available by the Government will augment the admirable services being provided by

Kids Help Line.

Continuing to support the National Falls Prevention for Older People Initiative

Reducing the number of falls and fall-related injuries sustained by older Australians remains a

priority for the Australian Government. The National Falls Prevention for Older People

Initiative has been provided with $9.6 million over four years to continue this undertaking.

The initiative aims to reduce the number of fall-related injuries and deaths in people aged 65

and over (55+ years for Indigenous people) living in the community or in aged care homes, as

well as those being treated in acute care facilities.

This funding will help to provide national leadership in falls prevention, promote nationally

consistent and evidence-based approaches to injury prevention, and support research where

gaps in knowledge have been identified.

Injury is a leading cause of death, illness and disability in Australia and injuries resulting

from falls in older people are one of the major contributors to this injury burden.

Continued funding for the National Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy

This measure continues the National Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy with funding of

another $4.2 million over four years.

This support demonstrates the Australian Government’s ongoing commitment to addressing

the problems caused by inappropriate levels of alcohol use.

The National Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy will build on existing partnerships to increase

awareness of the concept of a ‘standard drink’, promote responsible drinking behaviours and

equip families and communities with the skills and knowledge needed to prevent alcohol

related harm.

The strategy will also support education and training for health professionals on effective

treatment of alcohol related health problems.

Ensuring expert advice is provided about pharmaceuticals

The Australian Government will provide additional funding to further enhance the evaluation

expertise provided to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) as a

continuation of the 2000-2001 Budget initiative.

The PBAC has a statutory obligation to consider the comparative clinical and cost

effectiveness of all new medicines listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Evaluations, conducted by independent evaluation groups with specialist expertise, are

provided to the PBAC and help the government deliver long-term and significant benefits by

ensuring that only medicines with acceptable cost effectiveness are listed.

The total cost of this measure is $11.7 million over four years, which includes $3.2 million

from existing forward estimates.

Monitoring PBS entitlements

This measure reaffirms the Australian Government’s commitment to sustainability of the

Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) by ensuring that pharmaceutical benefits are paid

only to people eligible under the PBS.

PBS claims from pharmacies will continue to include Medicare details of eligible people

when they are filling PBS prescriptions. The measure enables the implementation of other

compliance strategies requiring the use of Medicare numbers.

made possible as a flow on from this measure.

Pharmacists are currently paid 5 cents per prescription for recording Medicare numbers on

prescriptions. This payment will continue to be made retrospectively for all prescriptions

processed up to and including 30 June 2005 at a cost of $8.5 million in 2004-2005 and $2.8

million in 2005-2006.

The measure will save $92.4 million over the next four years.