Why is this useful for rural and remote people?

This is one of the most valuable tools available to rural and remote people and should be copied in an every other State and Territory. Rural and remote people in Queensland can review this framework to understand exactly what services should be funded in their community, and to hold providers accountable if those services, or staff, are not available. That means that when a budget is set for a hospital, and staffing profile, local people in Queensland have a foundation to hold governments accountable for delivering this funding and workforce. There is no comparable document in other States or Territories to our knowledge that provides a transparent, open and accountable framework for the funding of rural health for the community. In other jurisdictions, local government associations or other regional groupings might want to think about banding together to ask their government to co-design and publish a simple, straightforward and easily accessible document like this one in their State or Territory. There is often no easy way to know whether a hospital budget set at the beginning of the year has been spent on the local community, or the money redirected. There is no easy way to know if your local hospital should have 1 full time doctor or 2 on duty, or 3 nurses or 10. Rural and remote communities cannot hold governments accountable for health care delivery unless the ground rules about funding, services and workforce have been set out clearly in a document that everyone can access and read. The Queensland Government has shown that such an approach is possible, so there is no reason why other States and Territories cannot do it as well.