Australian Hospitals and the Health Care System: Views of Hospital Executives

The most recent Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey asked hospital executives in five countries—Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States—for their views of their nation's health care system, the level and quality of their hospitals' resources, and efforts to improve quality of care. U.K. executives expressed confidence that hospital waiting lists are improving from what they were two years ago. When asked what were the biggest problems facing their hospitals, administrators in the U.K. named staffing shortages and overcrowded, outdated facilities, followed by inadequate funding. These challenges were echoed by hospital executives in the four other nations surveyed.