Our health does count! Our advocacy reaps results

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has announced significant initiatives to address the health inequalities experienced by people with intellectual disability.

The Australian Government is providing $5.7 million to 4 Primary Health Networks (PHNs) to lead improvements to how GPs and other primary health services meet the needs of people with intellectual disability.

The successful networks are in Central and Eastern Sydney, Western Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland.

The PHN programs will give people with intellectual disability better access to good quality health services. The programs will provide training and support to local health professionals, promote take-up and quality of annual Medicare health assessments, and work on equitable access to health prevention and promotion programs.

The Government has also funded Council for Intellectual Disability to develop resources to be used in the programs, including accessible health information for people with intellectual disability and their families.

Minister Hunt has also restated his commitment to developing a National Roadmap of wide-ranging action to improve health services for people with intellectual disability. Work on the Roadmap has understandably been delayed by the Coronavirus pandemic, but should start again in October.

We applaud Minister Hunt and his Department for all this work. And we can thank all our supporters for this positive result. We can confidently say that these initiatives flow directly from the Our Health Counts campaign, which we led with our partners during the Federal election in 2019.

Thank you to everyone who supported that campaign.

More information

• View Minister Greg Hunt’s press release
• More about the Our Health Counts campaign
• See also our health issues page for all our work on health