Nursing Assignment 2022

Running head: NURSING
NURSING
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

NURSING1
Introduction:
As stated by Cuckett and Willcox (2015), the Australian healthcare delivery system
has been regarded as one of the best healthcare systems in the world that offers reliable and
affordable health care delivery to its citizens. It should be noted in this context that the
healthcare system in Australia is governed by the three levels of Australian government
which constitutes the federal governing body, the local governing body and the territory
government (Mossialos et al., 2016). Healthcare in Australia is majorly provided by a
network of health care providers that include primary care providers, specialists, nursing
professionals and allied healthcare workers. Further, coverage assured by the Medicare and
the improved public hospital system guarantees affordable access to quality healthcare
services within the Australian territory. In this regard, it should be noted that the Australian
government has undertaken a number of measures in the form of policies to upgrade the
quality of the healthcare services that are available for the Australians. However, despite the
policy undertaking, the evidence base critically suggests that a gap still exists in terms of
improved health outcome for a significant proportion of the Australian population base. This
paper intends to evaluate the existing healthcare policies and discuss the existing gaps and the
implication of the policies on the nursing practice so as to adapt measures that can help
improve holistic health outcome for the Australian population base.
Discussion:
According to Willis (2015), the Australian healthcare system is a complicated
network of healthcare delivery that is managed by the funding and regulation of the federal
and state government. One of the primary challenges of the healthcare delivery system
includes difficulty experienced by the consumers in accessing the available healthcare

NURSING2
facilities. It should be crucially mentioned in this regard that the healthcare expenditure of
Australia is similar to the OECD average and is positioner at 8.8% of GDP (Hall, 2015).
Further, research reports also suggest that life expectancy at birth is ranked the sixth highest
in OECD and is estimated to be equivalent to 82.2 years (Oecd.org, 2019). Therefore, it can
be said that problem experienced by the consumers in terms of navigating through the
healthcare facilities poses a challenge which deteriorates the overall health outcome of the
patient. Researchers suggests that one of key solutions to improve the condition could
possible include reducing the health system fragmentation within Australia so as to acquire
positive patient outcome.
It should be noted in this context that the Australian government has adapted a
number of preventive health efforts and the outcome of the initiatives undertaken have been
mixed. For instance, Australia has prioritized public health and has strived to reduce the
smoking rate by integrating a number of public health policies. A number of health
promotional programs and initiatives have been undertaken within the Australian healthcare
context to reduce the nicotine consumption and curtain the rate of smoking to promote
positive public health outcome. The results published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics
suggest that the percentage of tobacco smoking in Australia has been reduced to 12.8% for
the individuals belonging to the age group of 15 and over, which is the lowest considering the
global percentage of smokers (Health.gov.au, 2019). In this regard it should be mentioned
that the policies that targeted the reduction of smoking rate within the Australian context
included tobacco plain packaging legislation, frequent increase of prices of tobacco products
through taxation and imposing ban on smoking across certain states (Dixit & Sambasivan,
2018). The outcome of these policies and measures have significantly impacted nursing
practice by virtue of which increased health literacy and awareness has been integrated within
the population base which has improved cumulative public health outcome.