QUICK FACTS
- An extra 44 full-time doctors and 25 full-time nurses at the RHH Emergency Department
- Additional staffing will ensure newly expanded ED operates to maximum capacity, 24/7, seven days a week
- Acute level care in your own home in the North, with a new Hospital@Home service
- Relocation and retention allowances for nurses and midwives, including graduates
- Facilitate hospital specialist outpatient appointments at rural hospitals, saving time and travel costs
- More outpatient appointments in each region for endometriosis
- A new clinician-led trial for triaging colonoscopies
- Cutting edge technology for urological and gynaecological procedures at the LGH
- GP referrals for diagnostic imaging at new public Breast Care Centre
- 20,000 more dental appointments for general dental care
- Dental care via the RFDS to East Coast, West Coast, Central Tasmania and the Huon Valley
- Online application forms for Patient Travel Assistance Scheme
- Boost for Cancer Council’s Transport2Treatment services
- Extended prescriptions for oral contraception - a two year supply for just one script
- Free TVs at your bedside in all major public hospitals
Under our 2030 Strong Plan for Tasmania’s Future, a re-elected majority Liberal Government will:
- Provide more doctors and nurses for the Royal's Emergency Department.
- Deliver a new eight-bed acute-level Hospital@Home service for the North.
- Attract and retain more nurses and midwives in Tasmania.
- Expand public endometriosis awareness, diagnosis and treatment services.
- Invest in a clinician-led colon capsule trial at the Royal Hobart Hospital.
- Establish a Statewide Integrated Operations Command Centre.
- Fund a new surgical robot for the North.
- Provide funding for a new Public Diagnostic Breast Care Centre in the south.
- Deliver more dental health care, including in our regions.
- Help more patients with transport and accommodation, including boosting Cancer Council Transport2Treatment services.
- Protect frontline workers from serious assault.
- Utilise community pharmacies to deliver more healthcare.
- Provide free TVs in all major hospitals.
Our 2030 Strong Plan for Tasmania’s Future is about taking action, right now, on issues affecting Tasmanians, particularly health.
Every day, the Government spends around $8.3 million on health services. We have doubled total spending on health since our election in 2014.
In that time, we’ve delivered an additional 298 hospital beds and employed an extra 2,500 health professionals, including 1,390 nurses.
But there’s more work to do and our health system still needs to be better.
Provide more doctors and nurses for the Royal's Emergency Department
A re-elected majority Liberal Government will deliver a massive staff and cash injection to boost the Royal Hobart Hospital's Emergency Department.
We will inject $88 million over four years to recruit an additional 44 full-time doctors and 25 full-time nurses.
This additional staffing will ensure that the recently expanded RHH Emergency Department will be able to ensure it is operating to its maximum capacity, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The first stage of the expanded ED opened in 2023 and delivered a 34 per cent boost to capacity and additional improvements, including a new $10 million purpose-built short stay unit, which added another 28 bed spaces to improve operational efficiency, infection control and patient privacy.
This will help ensure more patients are seen on time in the Emergency Department.
Deliver a new eight-bed acute-level Hospital@Home service for the North
The Tasmanian Liberal Government has put in place some innovative new health services over the past decade.
They include COVID@Homeplus, which treats patients with respiratory illness in their own home.
Hospital@Home operates in the south of the State, providing hospital-level care in patients’ homes, with 22 beds.
This means Tasmanians can get acute-level care in their own home, are able to leave hospital earlier, or avoid hospital in the first place.
A re-elected majority Liberal Government will build on this model of care by establishing Hospital@Home in the north of the State with eight new acute-level care beds in this service.
Hospital in the Home previously operated in the north but was axed by the previous Labor-Green Government as part of their cuts to health and hospitals, including closing a whole ward at the LGH and putting the beds in storage.
The new northern service will complement the work being done by the GP-led Community Rapid Response service, which will remain in place.
Attract and retain more nurses and midwives in Tasmania
A re-elected majority Liberal Government will continue to build new hospital and health services. This means recruiting more health professionals, including nurses and midwives, in a competitive national market for the same workforce.
To support further recruitment, we will:
- Offer a relocation allowance of up to $15,000 for nurses and midwives who relocate to Tasmania and remain employed full-time with the Tasmanian Health Service for three years or more.
- A $10,000 scholarship for new Tasmanian graduate nurses that start with the Tasmanian Health Service and remain employed full-time for a period of three years or more.
This $10 million package of incentives will help to deliver hundreds of nurses into the Tasmanian health system.
More elective surgery, endoscopy and outpatient appointments
In 2022-23, Tasmania performed more than 21,300 elective surgeries - more than any other year on record - and Tasmania now has the highest per capita admission rate for elective surgery in the country.
Our 2030 Strong Plan will keep building our hospital services, including developing with our clinicians a new four-year Elective Surgery Plan and Endoscopy Plan when the current plans expire.
We will also continue our four-year Outpatient Transformation Program to make it easier to see a specialist sooner.
A re-elected majority Liberal Government will provide virtual infrastructure upgrades to our district hospitals so that Tasmanians living in rural and regional areas can visit a hospital specialist without having to travel to the city.
Expand public endometriosis awareness, diagnosis and treatment services
A re-elected majority Liberal Government will boost health services for women by delivering an additional $1.2 million for public endometriosis treatment.
Endometriosis affects one in seven women, and the impact can be devastating, from crippling pain right through to infertility. While some gains have been made, it's still taking an average of 6.5 years to reach a diagnosis, and treatment remains a major challenge.
We will boost awareness, diagnosis and treatment of this disease across our public health system, including increasing the number of outpatient appointments at the Royal Hobart Hospital, Launceston General Hospital and North-West Regional Hospital.
Funding will also increase access to diagnostic procedures, including ultrasounds.
In addition, we will invest $4.7 million in a surgical robot, to give Tasmanians the latest technology for gynaecology surgery, including endometriosis, for patients within the public health system.
Invest in a clinician-led colon capsule trial at the Royal Hobart Hospital
Colon capsule endoscopy is innovative diagnostic technology benefiting patients because of its ability to quickly triage colonoscopy for those most in need.
The colon capsule contains a tiny camera, transmitter and light, is easily swallowed and takes diagnostic images as it passes through the patient's body, transmitting those images to a recorder outside of the body.
Colon capsule endoscopies have been successfully implemented overseas, with a significant evidence base to show the value of this technology.
A re-elected majority Liberal Government will pilot a clinician-led trial at the Royal Hobart Hospital.
Establish a Statewide Integrated Operations Command Centre
A re-elected majority Liberal Government will establish a Statewide Integrated Operations Centre to help ensure a seamless transition through the different areas of our health system, from a GP visit to a hospital admission and back home with the support, if needed, from Hospital@Home or our virtual@health services.
The Command Centre will be established by mid-2025.
Fund a new Surgical Robot for the North
A re-elected majority Liberal Government is investing $4.7 million to purchase a surgical robot for urological and other procedures, including gynaecological, at the Launceston General Hospital.
We will provide ongoing operational funding of $774 ,000 per annum from 2025-26 for the robot to ensure that it can be operational as soon as installed in 2025.
Provide funding for a new Public Diagnostic Breast Care Centre in the south
There is a recognised need for better health care to patients who require diagnostic breast imaging and mammography to meet increasing demand.
In March 2023, the Liberal Government introduced a new service that provides diagnostic breast imaging to patients as part of their public outpatient or inpatient admission, including ED presentations, post-operative and surveillance screening.
To complement this service, and the services provided by the private sector, a re-elected majority Liberal Government will expand diagnostic breast imaging to include referrals from GPs for patients with breast cancer symptoms.
Currently GP-referred diagnostic imaging is only available in the private sector, causing long wait times and sometimes, trips to the mainland.
The new $15 million public Diagnostic Breast Care Centre service will increase capacity while reducing wait times and the financial impact on those requiring these services.
The new diagnostic breast imaging service will be co-located with BreastScreen Tasmania in a new multi-disciplinary Breast Care Centre in Hobart and will be ready for operation in 2025.
Deliver more dental health care, including in our regions
A re-elected majority Liberal Government will:
- Provide an additional $4 million for 20,000 more dental appointments for general dental care, emergency dental care and urgent dental appointments and denture care, including for children and adolescents.
- Extend the partnership with the Royal Flying Doctor Service to provide new oral health services to concession card holders and children on the East Coast of Tasmania, covering St Helens to Orford. The partnership will ensure the delivery of oral health services over the next four years to the East and West Coast, as well as the establishment of new services in Central Tasmania and the Huon Valley.
Help more patients with transport and accommodation, including boosting Cancer Council Transport2Treatment services
The Patient Travel Assistance Scheme (PTAS) provides financial assistance to Tasmanians who need to travel to access hospital or specialised healthcare, interstate or within the State. We have already -
- Removed the patient contribution for eligible concession card holders from 1 January 2023 (saving money for Tasmanians who need to travel).
- Provided higher subsidies for travel in private vehicles and for accommodation in Tasmania and interstate.
- Allowing subsidies to be accessed up-front, to reduce out-of-pocket expenses.
- Providing more opportunities for King and Flinders Islanders to travel to access allied health and preventative health services.
A re-elected majority Liberal Government will provide even more help with patient transport and accommodation by implementing an online application system to make it easier to apply for subsidies, as well as reinstating support to access private services on the mainland which are not available in either the public or private sector in Tasmania.
More Funding for Cancer Council of Tasmania
Every day, the Cancer Council of Tasmania supports thousands of Tasmanians who are diagnosed with cancer, or are being treated, helping with services, support, education and its free Transport2Treatment services across the State.
A re-elected majority Liberal Government will provide an additional $527,000 over five years for this vital transport link for Tasmanians who need support to travel to their cancer treatment.
Protect frontline workers from serious assault
Assaults and serious offences against our frontline workers, including nurses and doctors in our hospitals and health services, is entirely unacceptable.
A re-elected majority Liberal Government will legislate within the first 100 days to keep our frontline workers safe from harm and serious assault.
Draft laws are currently out for consultation, and will apply to frontline health, safety and emergency services workers, including nurses, doctors, allied health workers, orderlies, paramedics, correctional services officers, retail, hospitality and passenger transport workers.
Utilising Community Pharmacy to deliver more healthcare
Our community pharmacy reforms began in 2022, with the successful No Script, No Stress Initiative. All pharmacies across Tasmania can issue a one-off supply for most prescription medicines.
Since then, we have introduced the Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) program, where pharmacists can diagnose and initiate treatment including prescription antibiotics. There are 114 pharmacies currently approved to provide treatment of uncomplicated UTIs right across the State.
A re-elected majority Liberal Government will expand the program to include extended prescriptions for the oral contraceptive pill.
This means Tasmanian women will be able to get a two-year supply of their pill with just the one script. This will reduce costs for women in time and money, and free up appointments for GPs.
Provide free TVs in all major hospitals
A re-elected majority Liberal Government will ensure Tasmanians never have to pay to watch TV when they are sick and in hospital.
While new hospital facilities, like the Royal Hobart Hospital’s K-block, have built in and free TVs, other hospitals are part of the older system of user pays. These costly TVs are being phased out of Tasmania's public hospitals.
In the meantime, we will pick up the tab for TV in all our major hospitals, so sick Tasmanians can enjoy what should be just part of the service.
Net Cost: $112.2 million over four years