The Victorian Health Collective is a collaboration between Victorian peak bodies and organisations, working together to shape a stronger, more sustainable health and wellbeing system across our state.
As Victoria approaches the 2026 State Election, healthcare represents around one-third of the Victorian State Budget, and will rightly be a major focus throughout the year. Cost-of-living pressures, workforce shortages and increasing demand for a diverse mix of services require targeted investment in the right places.
The Victorian Health Collective election priorities reflect the diversity of the Victorian sector and frame the approach required to meet the health needs of all Victorians regardless of their location, identity, income or life circumstances.
What we're calling for
Our six priorities target the areas of greatest need; driving sustainability, efficiency and innovation for the Victorian health system and the communities it serves.
Invest in equitable access to high-quality, culturally safe care
Resource healthcare services to reduce health inequities, align services with demand, and ensure that evidence-based, high-quality care is available to everyone, regardless of their location, identity, income and life circumstances. Investment must enable delivery on committed reforms.
Invest heavily in prevention, early intervention, recovery and action to address the social determinants of health
Prioritise prevention, early intervention, recovery and action on the social determinants of health, to drive health service system efficiencies and strong and effective pathways to long-lasting health and wellbeing for individuals and the community.
Strengthen integration and navigation across healthcare and social services landscape
Strengthen the connections between acute, primary and community-based services, making care easier to navigate, when and where people need it. Upgraded and expanded digital infrastructure will improve health information-sharing and reduce delays and client transitions between services. Stronger linkages across service streams, and improvements to referral pathways and discharge systems, will enable a better client journey back to the community after an episode of acute care.
Reorient funding approaches to recognise the true cost of delivering high-quality care
Amend funding arrangements to account for the cost of inflation, indirect health-related costs, strengthening of culturally safe care, medical research and strategic cross-sector collaboration, which are often not covered by traditional funding models.
Support a strong, skilled, diverse and sustainable workforce
Enhance the workforce to meet growing demand for a diverse mix of care. Enable the workforce to work to their full scope of practice and enable specialist expertise to respond to increasingly complex care needs. Workforce attraction and retention policies must be embedded to support areas of greater workforce demand and growth needs. Workforce initiatives should be targeted to support a workforce that reflects the diverse communities it serves.
Build, expand and maintain healthcare facilities that meet community need
Enable the delivery of infrastructure that provides the foundation for an effective and sustainable healthcare system. Healthcare facilities must meet the needs of growing populations with increasingly complex and diverse healthcare needs. Both new and upgraded healthcare facilities should be easy to access, welcoming, culturally safe and private, supported by digital infrastructure that enables connectivity to telehealth/virtual models of care.
Victorian Health Collective organisations
Media releases
Contact us
We welcome enquiries from government, media, healthcare organisations and community stakeholders. Use this form to get in touch with the Victorian Health Collective.
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