The NSW Liberals & Nationals have already released a number of policies that will make NSW communities healthier including:

• Vanessa’s Law:
  Proposed legislation to ensure a paediatrician has oversight of a child’s treatment if they are admitted to an adult ward.
• On-Time Bill Payments:
  A law designed to ease the pressures faced by small business by requiring State Government accounts to be paid within 30 days and allowing penalty interest to be charged if the deadline is not met.
• Making it work – Management of the NSW Health System:
  Abolishing Area Health Services and replacing them with smaller, community-focussed Health Districts oversighted by boards to improve management of the State’s health system.

In addition to these policies, some additional proposals the NSW Liberals & Nationals believe warrant examination to see how they can enhance NSW’s health system:

• The creation of partnership arrangements between Government and other health care providers to offer seamless health care, particularly for those at risk of developing chronic illnesses. These might range from preventative measures, primary health care provided by GPs, allied health professionals or the community pharmacist, to specialist care provided in acute hospitals.
• A strategy to improve hospital food ensuring the planning, preparation and provision of a patient’s nutrition forms part of their medical care. This proposal is based on a call for change by dieticians who argue nutrition must be based on patient needs and viewed as an intrinsic part of treatment.
• A plan to increase immunisation against whooping cough (or pertussis) to a level of 95 per cent of children aged 12 to 15 months – the rate of immunisation generally accepted as a level necessary to minimise the spread of vaccine preventable disease. Currently, the level of immunisation of children aged 12 to 15 months is 92.2 per cent.  Over 83% of those hospitalised with whooping cough are less than 1 year old.