Shannon was appointed CEO of the NHFB in April 2018.
Shannon has a broad range of experience across national security, economic and social policy environments. Shannon has 28 years’ experience in the APS across Health, Immigration and Border Protection and Defence with his previous roles having a strong focus on financial management and strategic advice on budget related policy and operational matters.
In his previous senior executive role in Health System Financing at the Department of Health, Shannon worked extensively on national health reform issues and represented the Australian Government at a number of national and international committees. These included health system fiscal sustainability as well as the negotiations on public hospital funding under the two Addendums to the National Health Reform Agreement.
Priorities for the future
One of the key priorities for this planning period will be the ongoing administration of Commonwealth NHR funding, the NPCR and the Commonwealth’s minimum funding guarantee. In relation to Commonwealth NHR funding, the Addendum outlines clear direction in several key areas including:
- public hospital funding integrity and duplicate payments
- funding cap exemption for Highly Specialised Therapies
- funding neutrality for private patients in public hospitals
- the progression of safety and quality measures (e.g. avoidable readmissions)
- measures to reduce demand for potentially preventable hospitalisations.
The NPCR has now been in place for three financial years 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22. In the year ahead, we will be focused on administering 2021-22 payments as well as completing the annual reconciliation for 2020-21.
Productive relationships
Communication and engagement remain vital to our success. I am pleased with our recent 2021 stakeholder survey results, achieving an average satisfaction score of 4.3 out of 5, however we must not become complacent. It is essential that we continue to collaborate openly and constructively with our Commonwealth, State and Territory stakeholders as well as our portfolio agency and industry partners.
Positive workplace culture
The platform to our success is operating as a high performing organisation that is professional, capable, flexible and technology enabled. I am also delighted with our recent 2021 employee census results, ranking first out of 101 Australian Public Service agencies, however once again we must not take this for granted.
It is important that we sustain our positive workplace culture underpinned by our united leadership behaviours. In 2021-22, we remain focussed on:
- strengthening our leadership, culture and organisational capabilities
- investing in our people through learning and development
- building on our strong stakeholder and industry partnerships
- reviewing our business operations for productivity improvements and cost efficiencies
- leveraging our digital transformation investment.
As always, I look forward to working closely with Michael Lambert (the Administrator), all our stakeholders and partners, and my outstanding team at the NHFB in improving the transparency of public hospital funding in Australia.