Strategic Planning
Strategic Planning Framework
NSW Health has an integrated strategic planning framework to guide the development of services and investments in the NSW public health system over the next 10 to 20 years.
The extensive work undertaken in developing the publication Fit for the Future, Future Directions for Health in NSW - Towards 2025 allowed consumers, clinicians and staff to see clearly the challenges ahead for the NSW health system, including serious challenges stemming from social, demographic, environmental and technological changes.
The Futures Directions planning process provided a solid basis upon which to build our future plans.
NSW State Plan
The NSW Government's State Plan sets out clear targets for improved outcomes and service delivery, including health services, which will enable the community to judge the Government's performance.
The State Plan, A New Direction for NSW, was launched by the NSW Premier, Morris Iemma, on 14 November 2006. It introduces a wide range of changes to the way Government is conducted in NSW, including targets to improve decision making and resource allocation. These changes will introduce:
- Stronger accountability for delivery of priorities
- New structures to drive decision making and support delivery
- New approaches to working with our partners
- Reforming budget processes to allocate resources to deliver the priorities and
- Building capabilities across the public sector to drive delivery
NSW Health is leading the following five health priorities outlined in the State Plan and will measure our progress and report against them:
S1: Improved access to quality health care
S2: Improve survival rates and quality of life for people with potentially fatal or chronic illness through improvements in health care
S3: Improve health through reduced obesity, smoking, illicit drug use and risk drinking
F3: Improved outcomes in mental health
F5: Reduced avoidable hospital admissions (including a focus on Aboriginal communities).
State Health Plan
The State Health Plan was issued by the Director General in late March 2007. It sets directions for NSW Health until 2010 and is based around the framework of the seven Strategic Directions which emerged from the Future Directions consultation process:
- Make prevention everybody's business
- Create better experiences for people using health services
- Strengthen primary health and continuing care in the community
- Build regional and other partnerships for health
- Make smart choices about the costs and benefits of health services
- Build a sustainable workforce
- Be ready for new risks and opportunities.
NSW Health has developed a range of integrated plans to ensure these seven strategic directions are implemented across the NSW public health system:
- The State Health Plan is our foundation planning document and it will guide the development of the public health system towards 2010 and beyond.
- The NSW Department of Health Strategic Plan has been developed to outline the work of the Department, particularly in addressing State Health Plan priorities.
- Health Services are developing five year Corporate Strategic Plans to further progress key programs against the seven Strategic Directions at the local level.
- NSW: A New Direction for Mental Health is a five-year plan, launched by the NSW Premier in 2006, to improve all aspects of mental health services, including emergency care, community-based assessment and care, services dealing with drug and alcohol abuse and services for older people with mental health needs.