The 'Dispatched' Podcast

In this week’s Dispatched Podcast , we unpack the AI Health Summit and agree it revealed a gap between institutional caution and the real-world pace of its adoption. The practical reality of the proposed ban on genetic testing for life insurance, the self-limiting nature of Australia’s health reform processes, the status quo bias, and the absence of any genuine patient-centred purpose in current s...

Reform efforts can struggle because they focus on health systems at their strongest point rather than their weakest. Framing is a pernicious tool used to justify delays and denials. We argue that the uptake of GLP-1 therapies in the US is delivering remarkable results, and that we need to apply the lessons from that experience in Australia, challenging institutional narratives and reframing the pu...

We discuss what could be a significant policy shift in PBS decision-making, with clinical judgement backed by what is a 'common sense' outcome. It could be a new precedent, but only if all stakeholders demand clarity on the criteria so that it can be applied more broadly. We also reflect on patient advocacy in New Zealand, where access has become a political issue and the focus of a sign...

Has Senate Estimates devolved into an overly polite, time-sliced format that enables waffle, obfuscation, and endless questions taken on notice? Does this reflect weakened scrutiny? The responses provided revealed the truth of review processes, which aim to protect institutional power, blame outsiders for problems, and generally add complexity to existing problems. Few appear willing to say the qu...

We open by marking Yom Kippur and a frank discussion before pivoting to the US 'MFN' drug-pricing moves, what they could mean for Australia’s PBS, and why institutional rigidity in HTA persists and is worsening. Medical research funding rhetoric versus slow progress in PBS and health technology access, hospital funding and NDIS pressures, and the expansion of pharmacist prescribing, as w...

On the Dispatched Podcast this week, we reflect on the erosion of public confidence in health decision-making. Former Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton’s admission that some COVID-19 measures were not strictly evidence-based highlights the need for a Royal Commission, which would have compelled accountability and helped restore trust. The discussion then turns to MSAC’s rejection of newb...

In this week’s episode, the Medical Services Advisory Committee’s rejection of adding Pompe disease to newborn blood spot screening is condemned. The decision is contemptuous, inhumane, and riddled with fabricated justifications based on made-up terms like 'parental hypervigilance'. Families’ lived experience highlights the devastating cost of delayed diagnosis. The committee ignored evi...

Patients should never accept a decision-making framework that requires them to sacrifice themselves for a mythical collective good, which is just the government getting the best deal for itself. More evidence of why we need to know what discussants present to HTA committees, and how they reflect personal opinions and ideologies. Financial results that confirm pharmacy's increasing role as a h...

The minister focused on NDIS reform at this week's National Press Club address, suggesting that it is taking up a lot of his time. Implementing the HTA Review will be one side of a two-sided coin. While it might frustrate some, it represents a unique opportunity to secure positive outcomes from an inevitable negotiation.

An update on the Government's travel policy! The opportunity of AI, our own journeys, and why it needs to be embraced and not feared, particularly in healthcare. Productivity and the impact of chronic conditions and another example of why it would be better to target support to those most in need.

Government travel policies make us laugh and laugh. Understanding reforms from the government's perspective is critical to understand how they will evolve over time, and an update that raises more questions than it answers.

A special episode focused on the AbbVie-commissioned survey, revealing firm support for increased investment in medicines and the true extent of patients paying the cost of their prescriptions. What does it mean and what is the opportunity?

Another order on pharmaceutical pricing, but what does it mean? What does the Government's productivity roundtable have in common with the HTA Review? Screening programs that aren't, and a co-payment reduction that puts the safety net further out of reach.

A sense of entitlement that needs to be questioned, Australia is on the list of nine countries to be targeted over pharmaceutical pricing, and the hopeless hypocrisy of allowing a group of disreputable regimes to have a say on this country's response to a pandemic, while fulminating about the US on the PBS.

The opportunity for Australia is to do less deflecting on healthcare affordability and engage in an honest discussion about the genuine challenges confronting many Australians. The debate does not just deflect on affordability.

The ongoing debate regarding the US, the Trump administration's potential tariffs on pharmaceuticals and the PBS is mainly characterised by falsehoods and errors. We discuss our incredible frustration over a debate that is almost entirely disconnected from facts, including the apparent belief that Australia has a vast array of advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities. We also have pra...

We have more health commissioners, including for genomics, and we both hope for a more meaningful discussion on weight loss therapies, the opportunities, access barriers, and their system-changing impact. Telehealth is here to stay, particularly in specific therapeutic areas, while one state has introduced political donations reform that could have a broader impact.

The health department has released its incoming ministerial brief to the reappointed Mark Butler, revealing internal government discussions over the future funding of new PBS listings, and hinting at limiting the implementation of the HTA Review recommendations to a small number of technologies. It also contradicts the claim that new PBS listings take 466 days from TGA registration, suggesting tha...

In a country as wealthy as Australia, how is it fair or equitable that some can pay for new treatments, while most are forced to wait, while the government uses a laborious multi-year process to negotiate the best deal for itself? We are forced to live with a system that regularly treats human health like a failing business. Are we worth saving? We also live with a system whose underpinning framew...

Adding disability to health in an already full ministerial bandwidth and funding challenges. Trade policy and the PBS, and a presentation on the human consequences of our decision-making. Can a targeted diagnostic screening and the strangest patient case study? Times 0:00 - 9.45: Adding disability to health in an already full ministerial bandwidth and funding challenges 9.45 - 17:55: Trade policy,...

A busy two weeks with an election and the addition of disability and the NDIS to the health portfolio. What does it mean? The credulous reflex response to comparisons between the US and Australian health systems. Why is denying access and out-of-pocket costs in Australia better than what happens in the US?

What is the balance between building national sovereignty in health and protecting patient safety and community confidence in new technologies? Do we need to be careful? An election brings back memories of 'future' funds past.

The health election debate mainly concerned bulk billing. New bureaucracies are rarely the solution to anything, and the challenge of faster funded access to new health technologies, particularly when advisory committees with power appear opposed. The complexity of weight-loss therapies presents opportunities.