Making Tracks
Making Tracks Policy and Accountability Framework
In July 2010, the Queensland Government launched Making Tracks toward closing the gap in health outcomes for Indigenous Queenslanders by 2033: Policy and Accountability Framework (PDF 8849 kB) (Making Tracks). A comprehensive evidence-based policy framework, Making Tracks provides the overarching policy directions to guide the Queensland Government's long-term effort towards achieving health parity between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other Queenslanders.
Making Tracks outlines five key priority areas required across the lifespan and health service continuum to achieve health parity.
- Priority 1 - A healthy start to life: Ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children 0-8 years are best placed for a healthy and safe start to life.
- Priority 2 - Addressing risk factors: Addressing the modifiable risk factors that contribute to preventable and chronic conditions.
- Priority 3 - Managing illness better: Establishing seamless pathways facilitating enhanced access to screening, early diagnosis, procedures and appropriate treatment of chronic conditions.
- Priority 4 - Effective health services: Improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ access to, and experience in, the health system, ensuring cultural capability throughout the patient journey and across the healthcare continuum
- Priority 5 - Improving data and evidence: Improve the quality and availability of research and data, accountability mechanisms and evaluation.
Vision
The vision for Making Tracks is a health system in Queensland that:
- Delivers culturally capable mainstream health services, complemented by and well-integrated with, targeted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-specific programs and services
- Provides coordinated and integrated care across the health continuum, throughout the patient journey and across service providers and care settings
- Identifies and is responsive at key intervention points across the life span
- Prevents, detects and manages illness in a timely and comprehensive way, seeking to enable recovery wherever possible
- Is accessible to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of all ages, all needs and abilities, and in all regions throughout Queensland
- Is complemented by actions across the broader social and cultural determinant (such as housing, education and employment), which are essential for improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ health and well-being.
Guiding principles
Making Tracks is underpinned by the following guiding principles:
- Partnership – between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and organisations, government and other non-government agencies and across a range of service providers to improve health and the broader social and cultural determinants of health
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural respect – the diversity, rights, views, values and expectations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and cultures must be central to, and respected in, the delivery of culturally competent health services
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health is everyone’s business – achieving sustainable health gains in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ health is a core responsibility and high priority for the entire health system and should be led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, communities and organisations
- Holistic health – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ concept of health is holistic, incorporating the physical, spiritual, cultural, emotional and social well-being of individuals and their whole communities. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, health is seen in terms of this whole-of-life view.
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-control of primary health care services – recognising, prioritising and partnering with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled health sector to providing comprehensive, quality, culturally competent primary health care, supporting locally-led decision-making as a fundamental component of health service provision
- Accountability – accountability by government to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities for transparent investment, decision-making and effective, sustainable services.
Implementation
Making Tracks includes a requirement for accompanying implementation plans to be developed and renewed every three years to reflect the specific initiatives for priority implementation for that period.
Current evidence and the contemporary policy environment underpin specific priority areas and principles progressed within each implementation plan (investment strategy) period.
Making Tracks Interim Investment Strategy 2021-22
Developed as a provisional approach guiding investment to 30 June 2022 pending the outcomes of emerging policy reforms, the Making Tracks towards achieving First Nations health equity: Interim Investment Strategy 2021-2022 (PDF 3189 kB) consolidates and builds upon current effort targeting the priority areas agreed in the Making Tracks Investment Strategy 2018-2021 (PDF 3189 kB).
Committing more than $102.5 million in additional funding in 2021-22, the Interim Investment Strategy 2021-22 establishes a platform to align forward investment to operationalise emerging policy directions, harnessing these opportunities to drive broader system and service improvements across the health system in Queensland.
Implementation Plan 2022-25 – coming soon
The Interim Investment Strategy 2021-2022 (PDF 3189 kB) will be superseded by a new 2022-25 Implementation Plan currently being developed by Queensland Health.
The new implementation plan will reflect current health equity reforms being driven across the health system and will focus on:
- Delivering funding stability and sustainability to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled health sector
- Embedding principles co-developed though the First Nations Health Equity reform agenda
- Strengthening First Nations cultural governance and accountability to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community
- Strengthening the financial governance and accountability framework to quantify total funding allocations across all sources and establish high-level KPIs to monitor investment under a broader Making Tracks umbrella
- Leveraging opportunities and synergies with the National Agreement on Closing the Gap and the Queensland Government’s Tracks to Treaty agenda.
The Implementation Plan 2022-25 will be finalised and publicly available prior to implementation from 1 July 2022.
Previous Investment Strategies
Making Tracks Investment Strategy 2018-2021 (PDF 2338 kB)