Activity based funding
The National Health Reform Agreement 2011 and its addendum 2020-25 (NHRA) is an Australian Government commitment to implement a nationally consistent approach to activity based funding (ABF) for public hospital services. Under the NHRA, states/territories must meet nationally agreed minimum infrastructure requirements to collect/report data for ABF purposes to determine the Commonwealth funding contribution for those services. Some services that are either not suitable for ABF or the ABF technical requirements are not able to be satisfied, are block funded.
Independent of the NHRA, the WA health system implemented ABF/activity based management from July 2010. As system manager, the department is continuing to work towards comprehensive data collection/reporting, and compliance to national and local policies/requirements to ensure reliable activity data are used for reporting, costing pricing, funding, purchasing and performance management functions. The Patient Activity Data (PAD) Policy exists to maintain the integrity of patient activity data collected within the WA health system. The PAD Business Rules outline criteria to correctly record, count and classify patient activity data within WA.
The ABF model in WA whilst closely aligned to the national model includes state-specific adjustments to account for local variations.
More information
Contact National ABF WA abf.national@health.wa.gov.au
Last reviewed: 04-02-2025