Ten years in and PHNs are battling on, scrambling to make programs stick, ducking and diving around election cycles and budgetary constraints.
Happy belated 10th birthday PHNs!
Yes, folks, you read that correctly. On 1 July 10 years ago, primary health networks made their Australian debut.
Tony Abbott was Prime Minister, and you’ll never guess who the health minister was – Sussan Ley! Funny how what goes around, comes around, isn’t it?
To be fair, given the Abbott mob only came into power in September 2013, it’s probably a reasonable assumption that PHNs were already, if not fully formed, then at least a kernel in the brain of some health policy wonk while Kevin Rudd and Tanya Plibersek – whatever happened to her? – were running the show.
Before there were PHNs, of course, there were Divisions of General Practice, and then Medicare Locals replaced them in 2011. I still run into GPs going all misty-eyed and nostalgic for the Divisions.
Do a Google search for PHNs and you’ll get an “AI overview” — *shudder* — which blithely describes PHNs as “independent, non-government organisations”, proving once again that AI can hallucinate just as well as any stoner at an Airlie Beach backpacker hostel’s Friday night BBQ. Don’t ask.
PHNs are beholden to the federal government department which funds them – namely, the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. Calling them “independent, non-government organisations” is like saying Stephen Colbert’s Late Show got axed for “purely financial reasons”, or lifting the restrictions on US beef imports isn’t linked in any way to trying to stop Little Lord Fauntleroy tariffing the hell out of Australian copper and pharmaceuticals.
Come on.
I have all the respect in the world for PHNs and the people who run them. They are tasked with helping deliver primary care on the ground in some of the country’s most challenging settings, using the money the DoHDA gives them, then takes away from them, then gives back with a whole new different set of constraints, every three years, at best.
Are they doing a good job? I’m not sure anybody knows, to be honest.
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One group of people do know, for certain, and that’s the people at the DoHDA, and the minister, I’m sure, who have read the Boston Consultancy Group’s review of the PHNs’ business model.
Commissioned by the Department in December of 2024, at a cost of $2 million, submissions closed on 22 January 2025.
HSD had an update from DoHDA on 22 May saying the report would be delivered to it later in May.
Since then, crickets.
The BCG isn’t particularly shy about these things – its public hospitals report is right there on its website for all to read.
But the PHNs review has disappeared into the black hole of DoHDA desk drawers.
Word is the PHN CEOs have been sent a copy of the report, or at least a summary. Our sources say they’ve also been told to keep the report a deep, dark secret.
All of which suggests that the report is less than complimentary about the way PHNs are operating, or rather, the way the department allows them to operate.
I sent off a few questions to the DoHDA on Thursday morning, asking where the report was, had it been sent to the PHNs, had the PHNs been told to keep it quiet, and when the report might be made public.
Chances are, by the time this article is published I will not have heard back from the department’s media team, bless them, who are, after all, just doing their masters’ bidding.
Perhaps I will be surprised and I have received a response, late on Friday telling me that the report will be made public shortly.
… I can hear you laughing from here. Stop it, they’re doing their best.
Have a good weekend, all.