The issues

Issue 1

Cuts that cost more

Hospitals and the department have faced repeated, short-notice savings demands: model budgets with cuts, requirements to break even by 30 June 2025, and small rural services asked to contribute up to 70% of their reserves (VHA). These were followed by partial top-ups and more than $1 billion in combined hospital deficits (ABC).

Department of Health staffing, excluding Safer Care Victoria, falls from 2,279 to 2,029 FTE between June 2025 and June 2027, alongside savings targets of $96.6m and $108.1m (Department of Health questionnaire).

The savings are small beside the cost of harm. Unsafe care accounts for about 12.6% of health spending in high-income countries (OECD), and hospital complications cost Australia more than $4 billion a year (Grattan Institute). Better nurse staffing is associated with lower mortality (McHugh et al., Lancet 2021), and hospital crowding with higher mortality (Sprivulis et al., MJA 2006). The medical indemnity premium for Victoria's public hospitals rose 26.4% to $380.9 million in 2025–26 (VMIA).

The questions to every party · Full detail in the report (PDF)

Issue 2

A watchdog without teeth

Safer Care Victoria is an administrative office whose CEO is responsible to the Secretary of the Department of Health (Statement of Expectations). It "can recommend changes, but only the government can implement" them (AMA Victoria).

The power to act sits with the Secretary, who can issue directions to health services (Health Services Act, s 42), and with the Minister. The 2026–27 performance framework allows escalation up to dismissal of a board (Department of Health). The clearest visible use on safety grounds remains the 2015 dismissal of the Djerriwarrh board (ABC).

The questions to every party · Full detail in the report (PDF)

Issue 3

Oversight in the dark

When the government appoints delegates or monitors to hospital boards, the Gazette notice records the appointment but not the reason (Victoria Government Gazette). The oversight tier each health service sits in under the performance framework is not published (Department of Health).

Without reasons and outcomes, the community cannot tell whether an intervention was about safety, finances or governance, or whether it worked.

The questions to every party · Full detail in the report (PDF)

Issue 4

Less public reporting

Mandatory quality accounts, the main public report on each hospital's safety and quality, have been permanently ceased, citing "ongoing increased resourcing and regulatory pressures" (Safer Care Victoria).

Of 217 sentinel events in 2024–25, 61% involved a patient death and only 26% were notified within three business days. Single-agency reviews averaged 79 business days against a 50-day standard, and multi-agency reviews 106 against 75 (Safer Care Victoria). Leaked quarterly data reported in the media showed 45% of investigations overdue statewide in late 2024 (Border Mail).

The questions to every party · Full detail in the report (PDF)

Issue 5

Losing the data

The Victorian Agency for Health Information became a division of the department in 2021 (VAHI) and is now described as the eHealth division (Safer Care Victoria Annual Report 2023–24).

In May 2024 the VAHI Data Request Hub accepted all requests for hospital, mental health and alcohol and drug data, including from agencies outside the department, subject to resources and cost recovery (archived hub page, May 2024). By January 2025 it could no longer process new requests from anyone outside the Department of Health. It could not give health services their own underlying performance data or answer service-planning requests, and it referred researchers to national bodies and data linkage. Safer Care Victoria staff were redirected to an eHealth business partner (archived hub page, January 2025). That notice remains in place (current hub page).

eHealth's former Deputy Secretary reports a "40% reduction in FTE" (L. Emerson, LinkedIn), following a Deloitte affordability review of eHealth (Department of Health questionnaire to PAEC).

The questions to every party · Full detail in the report (PDF)

Issue 6

Budgets enforced, safety not

In May 2024 the Secretary and the Minister wrote to every health service board requiring services to live within their budgets (PAEC hearing), and budget action plans were required to reach breakeven (VHA).

By contrast, formal action on a cluster of deaths or serious harm is publicly documented only at Djerriwarrh in 2015 (VAGO) and in the 2023 Albury Wodonga colonoscopy recall of about 2,000 patients (Safer Care Victoria). No public example was found of a direction, funding consequence or other formal intervention for a hospital that was an outlier on a safety indicator.

The questions to every party · Full detail in the report (PDF)