Author: Dr Rhonda Kerr - Co-Chair

During election cycles, public and political opinions on healthcare—especially emergency and hospital services—are strongly expressed. While access to health services is a recurring theme, are popular solutions always the right ones for long-term hospital and health service planning?

Recent state and federal elections in Australia, and the national election in New Zealand, have seen commitments to fund hospitals, expand emergency departments, and build new facilities. In Queensland and New Zealand, new governments have reviewed existing health plans, identifying new priorities while removing previous ones.

Planning Beyond Bricks and Mortar

Health planners understand the complexity of delivering appropriate, timely, and effective care. Health planning principles go far beyond infrastructure alone. They are grounded in a thorough understanding of population health trends and current and future service needs - ensuring that services are designed with both present demands and future shifts in mind.

Effective planning considers interdependent factors such as:

• Workforce availability and sustainability
• Clinical relationships and service adjacencies
  
• Patient flow and continuity of care across the system
  
• Technological and digital infrastructure to support care within and beyond hospital walls.

Beyond the Headlines: What Political Promises Miss

Despite their good intentions, many political commitments don’t address the deeper, structural challenges that determine the success of healthcare transformation:

• Adapting service configurations to meet changing population needs - not just scaling up, but right-sizing services to ensure the right care is provided in the right place
  
• Building integrated networks that optimise workforce capacity and clinical collaboration
  
• Incorporating new technologies to enhance care delivery, patient experience, and system efficiency
  
• Navigating the ever-present challenge of finite budgets, which require thoughtful prioritisation.

The Cost of Planning Disruption

One overlooked consequence of politically driven health planning is the stop-start cycle of project revisions. These changes can:

• Disrupt and disperse committed workforces
  
• Undermine trust among clinicians and project stakeholders
  
• Delay the implementation of critical technologies and service improvements
  
• Ultimately, reduce timely patient access to appropriate care.
  

Every delay or cancellation represents lost momentum and missed opportunities for innovation.

Planning Beyond Politics

AAHP members play a vital role in navigating these complexities - without partisanship. They work to ensure sustainable improvements in healthcare access and effectiveness, at local, regional, and national levels.

But lasting progress requires more than planning expertise. It requires stability. Can we create a planning environment where healthcare transformation continues—even through political change?

As we reflect during this election period, it’s worth considering the value of consistent, evidence-based planning that transcends electoral cycles. The Australasian Association of Health Planners exists to support this long-term vision, enabling better healthcare for both patients and policymakers.