09 Dec 2010
Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Hospitals have the potential to support long-term health service needs, as long as such large projects are properly briefed and scoped, and equally well managed on both sides of the partnership.
That’s the view of Katie Wood, Arup’s Australasia Healthcare leader, when she gave a recent presentation to an expert panel along with Dr Henry Cutler, Associate Director of Access Economics.
Australia’s health sector – along with many other countries is facing challenges: costs are rising faster than GDP, the population is ageing, chronic diseases and co-morbidities are increasing and new clinical treatments are being developed.
Demands on our health services mean that hospitals will need to be flexible over time, efficient in terms of operation and infrastructure over time and support the provision of quality healthcare. Moreover, the service expectations of the public will continue to rise.
For key decision makers in the health services sector the question remains: what procurement method will deliver hospitals that can best meet these needs?
An increasingly used and much discussed procurement method for larger hospitals is the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. Much has been written about procurement efficiency and project outcomes for this model throughout many sectors of the Australian economy and its infrastructure. But is it a suitable model for Australian health services?
The expert panel discussed what health services need from PPP hospitals, design innovations and lessons learned from the UK where a series of hospital Private finance Initiative projects are now past mid-term.
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