Pre-Budget Submission to the Australian Treasurer: Health & Medical Research

This pre-Budget submission to the Australian Treasurer for the 2014–15 Budget maintains that Commonwealth funding for health and medical research (H&MR) should be treated as an investment that improves quality of life, boosts productivity and can help curb growth in health spending. It cites Research Australia polling in which 80% of respondents rated increased Government funding for H&MR as important, biomedical exports of around $4 billion a year, Monash University modelling linking better health among older workers to higher employment and GDP, and national health expenditure of $140.2 billion in 2011–12, with Treasury forecasting Commonwealth health spending to rise from 4% to 7.1% of GDP by 2049–50. Drawing on the CareTrack study and National Health Performance Authority reports on variation in care, it makes seven recommendations: maintain the real value of Commonwealth H&MR funding across all programs; fund a body to implement and monitor the Strategic Review of Health and Medical Research (McKeon Review) recommendations; increase funding for research translation, including clinician researcher roles, research buy-outs for Medicare Locals and implementation research; increase funding for health systems research; expand the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care’s mandate to include efficiency and give it capacity to fund evaluation of practices nominated by providers; increase population and preventive health research funding; and retain Commercialisation Australia and the R&D Tax Incentive. Appendices summarise Commonwealth funding sources for H&MR.