Commonwealth Numbered Regulations - Explanatory Statements

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NATIONAL HEALTH REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT) 1994 NO. 106

EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

STATUTORY RULES 1994 No. 106

Issued by Authority of the Minister for Human Services and Health

National Health Act 1953

National Health Regulations (Amendment)

Subsection 140(1) of the National Health Act 1953 (the Act) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations, prescribing all matters which by the Act are required or permitted to be prescribed.

A number of government nursing homes in Tasmania have previously been prescribed by regulation as adjusted fee government nursing homes for the purposes of section 4AAAA of the Act from 1 July 1993. This amended regulation is to prescribe the remaining Tasmanian government nursing homes as adjusted fee government nursing homes.

Currently, proprietors of government nursing homes receive a fixed rate of benefit for each nursing home patient. The rate of benefit paid in respect of such patients has been frozen since 1985. In the 1992 Federal Budget, the Government announced its intention that government nursing homes be brought into the care aggregated module (CAM) funding system which applies only to privately operated nursing homes and adjusted fee government nursing homes. The CAM funding system will result in higher levels of benefit being paid to the proprietors of nursing homes that become adjusted fee government nursing homes. In order for existing government nursing homes to become adjusted fee government nursing homes and thereby be brought into the CAM funding system, they must be prescribed as adjusted fee government nursing homes for the purposes of section 4AAAA of the Act.

Groups of government nursing homes throughout Australia have been progressively prescribed as adjusted fee government nursing homes for the purpose of the Act. On 1 May 1993, the first group of government nursing homes in Victoria became adjusted fee government nursing homes. This was followed by a second group of nursing homes in Victoria on 1 June 1993, the third group in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania on 1 July 1993, and the fourth group in Victoria on 1 November 1993.

The purpose of the National Health Regulations (Amendment) is to prescribe a fifth group of government nursing homes, namely two nursing homes in Tasmania, as adjusted fee government nursing homes with effect from 1 May 1994. The nursing homes prescribed are set out in the Attachment. The regulations also omit the current Schedule 5 (list of adjusted fee government nursing homes) and substitute a new Schedule 5 which consolidates the list of all adjusted fee government nursing homes. The Ouse Nursing Home was previously prescribed as an Adjusted Fee Government Nursing Home on 1 July 1993. This home has now combined with another home and has been renamed in the revised Schedule 5 as the Southern Region Nursing Home.

The Regulations commenced on 1 May 1994.


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