Work Intensification for Personal Service Attendants and Medical Scientists

The processes used for achieving reform in the public healthcare sector in Australia have taken two directions. The initial strategy employed by governments was to introduce efficiency measures into the sector via policy directives that usually tied funding to productivity. These have been broadly defined elsewhere in this book as the strategies of New Public Management. The introduction of Casemix diagnosis related groups (DRGs) and the incentives built into the various Medicare Agreements are two examples of this approach. This strategy motivated many hospital managers to engage in workplace reform with financial assistance provided by both Labor and Liberal-National Federal Governments through such incentive programs as the National Hospital Demonstration Program. The second strategy has been industrial relations reform aimed at increasing workplace flexibility in order to increase productivity and efficiency gains. Both reform strategies have impacted on the working life of health professionals and occupational groups in the sector.