A new entry at the Croakey Register of Unreleased Documents

We have a new entry for the Croakey Register of Unreleased Documents.

CRUD records the details of evaluations, plans, reviews and other such documents that should be released (whether by governments or other commissioning bodies), in the interests of promoting better informed policy, practice and debate.

An eagle-eyed Croakey source noted this link from the Australian Health Workforce Institute’s work program. At least the Institute is being upfront about the report not being for public release, rather than just trying to bury it. This does invite the question, however, of why the report is not being released.

Perhaps someone could tell us.

The new entry is:

• A Report on Incentives and the Australian Health Workforce  – Completed by the Australian Health Workforce Institute in April 2009 but marked “not for public release”.

Other CRUD entries are:

• Evaluation of the Rural Clinical Schools Program and the University Departments of Rural Health Program
This was done by the consultancy Urbis which proclaims that its detailed report assessed the effectiveness and workforce implications of the two Programs and made 25 recommendations about their future development. Urbis says: “The report was well received by the Department and the sector and has been influential in guiding policy direction in rural health education.” That’s interesting because at least one Croakey source in “the sector” has been trying to get their mitts on the evaluation, without any satisfaction.

• Two reviews of the Rural, Remote and Metropolitian Areas (RRMA) classification system have been undertaken
The most recent one was done in conjunction with the review of “targeted rural health programs” that was behind various changes in the Budget, including the move from RRMA to the ABS’s Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) system. An earlier review of RRMA was apparently also undertaken some years ago, under Minister Abbott’s reign. So far as Croakey knows, neither review has been publicly released.

• The NSW Radiotherapy Plan  2006-2011
Our source says NSW Health has failed to release this document despite a number of requests (not to mention the fact that we are already three years into the period of the plan).

• Evaluation of the National Suicide Prevention Strategy – Final Report
Prepared for Department of Health and Ageing by Urbis Keys Young
The evaluation is dated April 2006.
(Please contact Croakey if you’d like a copy)

• Summative Evaluation of the National Mental Health Plan 2003-2008
The evaluation is by US consultant Charles Curie and English psychiatrist Professor Graham Thornicroft
(Please contact Croakey if you’d like a copy)

• NHMRC review of public health research
This was conducted by Don Nutbeam and went to the Research Committee last year but has not yet seen the light of day.
(The NHMRC’s ceo Warwick Anderson comments: I have commissioned three reviews which, by coincidence, will all be released with NHMRC’ s responses, next week. Respectively the Nutbeam, Zerhouni and Berstein reports. These will be released together with a draft discussion paper for our next Strategic Plan.)

• A national evaluation of the Primary Health Care Research Evaluation & Development program
Our Croakey informant says: “This is a major Department of of Health and Ageing initiative that has substantially increased the national capacity for and actual implementation of PHC research. This has been through capacity building funding to departments of rural health and general practice, direct research grants, research fellowships and the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute. This is an important program. For example, some of the resultant work and key researchers involved in these activities have contributed directly to informing the current policy reform debate through the NHHRC & Preventative Health Taskforce.”

• Growing the evidence base for early intervention for young children with social, emotional and/or behavioural problems: systematic literature review

Commissioned by the Victorian Department of Human Services. Dated April 2008.
Authors: Melissa Wake, Harriet Hiscock, Jordana Bayer, Megan Mathers, Tim Moore, Frank Oberklaid

• The National E-Health Strategy, written for NeHTA by Deloitte

Our informant says this has yet to be released although a brief summary was slipped out quietly on December 22, 2008, and a summary can be found here.

Here’s what the DoHA website says about this strategy which, if it is such a “useful guide to the further development of E-Health in Australia”, and is to help the States and Territories and the public and private sectors “determine how they go about E-Health implementation…”,  ought to be publicly available.

“The National E-Health Strategy developed by Deloitte, together with key stakeholders, provides a useful guide to the further development of E-Health in Australia. It adopts an incremental and staged approach to developing E-Health capabilities to:

• leverage what currently exists in the Australian E-Health landscape;

• manage the underlying variation in capacity across the health sector and States and Territories; and

• allow scope for change as lessons are learned and technology is developed further.

The Strategy reinforces the existing collaboration of Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments on the core foundations of a national E-Health system, and identifies priority areas where this can be progressively extended to support health reform in Australia. It also provides sufficient flexibility for individual States and Territories, and the public and private health sectors, to determine how they go about E-Health implementation within a common framework and set of priorities to maximise benefits and efficiencies.

• A review of the Medical Specialist Outreach Assistance Program

It was commissioned by DOHA back in 2004 but has never been made public despite a number of organisations asking for copies.

If you know of evaluations, reviews and other such documents that should be on the public record, please drop us a line.