A jaded healthcare executive once remarked to me that interacting with government was like visiting a Monte Carlo casino – there’s a chance you might win big, but it’s prudent to avoid them altogether.
He was right and wrong. Interacting with government can feel like a slow-going slog through bureaucracy, endless waits and then rejections. Yet as the highest customer in the food chain (in healthcare at least) and the decision-maker on what treatments become available and when, you must talk to them. After all, consider what is at stake.
The nature of healthcare is that everything is important. We are in the life-or-death business. Lack of access to a new medicine, technology or clinical service can be the difference between a person’s quality of life and length of life.
The speed of global innovation in this space is remarkable and inspiring. Brave and ingenious scientists have found countless ways for human suffering to be alleviated. The inescapable reality, though, is that these superb inventions must be funded somewhere by someone.
Any medical item which is paid for by the taxpayer-funded purse is rigorously reviewed. For something to receive attention, by definition, something else must not. The broader realities of economic pressures, priorities on public spending, politics, social issues, and everything else stacked against you mean that getting attention for your issue may seem overwhelming.
The intention of this playbook is to help you navigate that overwhelm. It has been written by a London Agency Public Affairs team who understand both the social impacts that result from healthcare decisions and the behind-the-scenes tensions of getting good policy done well. Having been on the other side of the table listening to healthcare pitches, we bring insights on what is most likely to achieve policy and political traction.
Our aim is to provide practical tactics you can implement now, seizing immediate opportunities in the 48th Parliament led by a government that values health and has both mandate and means to reform.
On election night, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese secured a decisive victory and celebrated with his Medicare card held high. The question now is how healthcare can be done better over the next three years as Australia’s health outcomes continue sliding backwards from the pandemic’s impact.
This playbook is designed to help organisations large and small. Even if you feel your position is static, difficult, or impossible – that you’re in a straitjacket – you may have more competitive advantages than initially appear. We’ll show you practical ways to activate these advantages and strengthen your case.
The patient, the person and their family deserve better. It is our duty to make the most compelling case to policymakers and decision-makers so healthcare organisations can truly serve the populations relying on them.
Given what’s at stake, we must do everything possible to give Australians the chance for the healthy life they deserve – because faster access changes lives.
John Emmerson – Managing Director
