STATE OF THE HEALTH SERVICE: STRUCTURAL CHANGE IN NEW SOUTH WALES HEALTH ADMINISTRATION—OR SISYPHUS REVISITED

摘要: Providing health services is an expensive undertaking with a high degree of government subsidy. Partly in an attempt to control burgeoning expenditure, the last 10 years has seen major changes in the organisational arrangements for the control and coordination of health services at the State level. New South Wales started the trend with the amalgamation of its Hospitals Commission and its Health Department into the Health Commission of New South Wales. Since that amalgamation, in 1973, Health Commissions have been created in Victoria, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory. The organisational arrangements adopted in the various Health Commissions have been far from stable for there is recurring dissatisfaction with the formal structures adopted. New South Wales, for example, has experimented with a variety of structures without either a comprehensive overview beforehand or a detailed …