Prior to 30 June 1975, authority for health services was divided between the ACT Health Services Branch of the Department of Health, which provided all facilities except hospitals, and the Canberra Hospitals Management Board, a statutory corporation. The Board, assisted in its deliberations by the ACT Hospital Advisory Committee, was directly responsibled to the Minister for Health; the Branch was responsible through the Departmental head.
In 1968 the National Capital Development Commission retained a London firm of consultants, Llewelyn-Davies Weeks Forestier-Walker & Bor, to study the future health requirements of the capital, assuming a future population of 500,000. The resultant report carried this comment (pp. 10-11):
" . . . Modern medical practice requires the co-ordination of all
medical and para medical skills in close association with welfare
services. Present fragmentation of health services . . . prejudices
liaison between personnel and makes public contact with the various
elements difficult. The existing arrangements . . . tends (sic) to
separate the hospital from the community provision. Modern
requirements for continuity of care are difficult to meet . . . and
problems . . . are bound to increase as the city grows.
"A very heavy burden is placed on the Commonwealth Department of
Health, which has to respond at the same time to the demands of
Australia as a whole and to the local problems . . . The lines of
communications for both the Canberra citizens and the medical
professions to the administrative heads . . . are complicated by
these dual responsibilities . . ."
The consultants' recommendations (p. 36) included the following:
"1. the establishment of a health authority on the lines of a
health commission, to plan, implement and manage a coordinated
health system for the ACT;
- that the medical and other health professions and the public
should be able to contribute to, and participate in, the process
of decision making . . .
- that the development of the health system should provide for a
proper relationship between hospital-based and community-based
services . . ."
On 17 October 1973 the Minister for Health announced that the government had approved the setting up of an independent statutory authority, the ACT Health Commission, directly responsible to him. An interim committee would supervise the setting up of the commission, and an implementation committee would coordinate working parties associated with the commission. The principle of a single statutory authority was generally favoured by involved institutions, groups and individuals (Canberra Times, 18.10.73).
Dr Sidney Sax, chairman of the interim committee of the National Hospitals and Health Services Commission, was to be acting chairman of the interim committee for the ACT commission and chairman of the coordinating committee (Department of Health News Release (30.10.73)). However, Dr Annette Walshe, Director of ACT Health Services, became chairman of the coordinating committee, which was dissolved when the interim committee was established on 15 April 1974. The Cabinet appointed Dr Ronald Wells, a former director of ACT Health Services, interim chairman of the Commission and chairman of the interim committee. He was also interim chairman of the Canberra Hospitals Management Board (Canberra Times 23.3.74).
The ACT Advisory Council and its successor, the ACT Legislative Assembly, were consulted at various stages in the formation of the Commission, and substantially influenced the final content of the ordinance which ordained it (Legislative Assembly Hansard, 7.4.75). The Commission was formally brought into being by the Health Commission Ordinance 1975 (No. 16 of 1975, made 26.6.75, gazetted 27.6.75). The Ordinance was effective on and from 1 July 1975 (Gazette, 1.7.75). One of its provisions (s. 4) repealed the
ordinances to which the Canberra Hospitals Management Board owed its existence. Neither the Ordinance nor its regulations explicitly brought the Canberra and Woden Valley Hospitals under the Commission's control; however as the Commission is successor in functions to the Canberra Hospitals Management Board which was responsible for the control of these hospitals the Commission is assumed to maintain the role of the former Board. As the Board had no premises or staff of its own (having subsisted on hospital facilities), nothing had to be disposed of except its records, which the Commission received. The Commission also took over all the responsibilities of the ACT Health Services Branch except the Institute of Anatomy, and all its personnel and records, at which point the Branch ceased to exist.
Dr Wells was confirmed in the position of Commissioner.
CONSTITUTION.
The Commission was a statutory corporation with perpetual succession and common seal (Ordinance, s. 9), comprising nine members. The Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner were full-time members appointed by the Minister for Health. All other members served part-time. One was nominated by the National Hospitals and Health Services Commission; three were elected by and from the Legislative Assembly; and the medical profession, the nursing profession and "prescribed employees" in the health services each elected one member from their own ranks (s. 10).
The Commissioner served as general manager of the Commission's affairs (s. 20).
RESPONSIBILITY
As a body, the Commission was directly responsible to the Minister for Health for the general conduct of its affairs and of its finances in particular (ss. 7(2), 72). Ultimately it was responsible to the Parliament in that it relied on specific Parliamentary appropriations for the bulk of its funds (s. 66). (Section 69 denies it the power to borrow money.) It answers to the Public Service Board for the terms and conditions under which it employed staff (ss. 34, 35). Its members were severally responsible to the authorities that appoint or elect them; but the Minister for Health had overriding power to nullify an election (s. 85), and under s. 16 the Governor-General may remove members from office in the usual circumstances (misconduct,
incapacity, bankruptcy).
It is logical to expect that authority over the Commission would pass in due course to the Legislative Assembly; and from time to time references during sessions had confirmed that its members expected this (eg Hansard, 7.4.75, pp. 60-62). But presumably such a transfer would await the formation of an executive within the Assembly, so that oversight of the conduct of Commission affairs could be uninterrupted.
POWERS
Within the limits outlined above in "Responsibilities", the Commission could exercise any or all of the powers normally extended to statutory corporations, such as acquisition and disposal of property, entry into contracts, and so on (s. 8). It could also enter into arrangements with other authorities, organizations or persons within or outside the ACT to fulfil the laws of the Territory relating to health, or "to provide such other health services as the Minister approves" (ss 7 (I to N), 8). It did not, however, have power to make its own by-laws.
Legislation administered
Act Ordinance No. 16 of 1975, Health Commission Ordinance 1975 Regulations 12 and 13 of 1975.
Previous agency unregistered
1975: Canberra Hospital (from 1973) Hospitals Management Board
