PHE

The following are principles of the collection. States and territories should consider these principles when providing data.

1. The PHE data element cluster should capture and differentiate between in-scope and out-of-scope of the NHRA.
2. The PHE data element cluster must specify where financial data elements are reporting actual data and where they are reporting estimated data.
3. Where possible, the PHE data element cluster should align with the Government health expenditure NMDS (GHE NMDS), so it is able to function as a subset of the GHE NMDS if required.
4. Reporting on expenditure relating to contracted care requires less detail than other expenditure.
5. Where possible, the changes to the PHE data element cluster should maintain the ability to report time series data from previous years.

Recurrent expenditure and related revenue data reported to the PHE data element cluster should reconcile with published financial statements.

Expenditure data are reported in two ways:

• as it would appear in the general ledger line items (Establishment—recurrent non-salary expenditure, public hospital expenditure categories code N[N] and Establishment—staffing categories, health code N[N])
• by NHRA product streams Establishment—total recurrent expenditure, National Health Reform Agreement 2011 product streams code N[N]. These are estimated data.

The total recurrent expenditure by product stream should equal the total recurrent expenditure by general ledger line item.

For the purposes of the PHE data element cluster, funding from the Australian Government, state and territory health authorities and other state and territory government departments is considered to be revenue and should be reported as such.

Some data for this data element cluster are sourced from the state or territory health authority general ledger. Some other data are maintained at the Local Hospital Network (LHN) or hospital and are forwarded to the relevant state or territory health authority for inclusion.

National reporting arrangements

State and territory health authorities provide the data to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare for national collation, on an annual basis.

Periods for which data are collected and nationally collated

Financial years ending 30 June each year.

Interaction with the Local Hospital Networks and State or territory health authority data element clusters

The PHE, LHN and State or territory health authority data element clusters work together to collect data on the public hospital system. The three data set specifications collect the same types of expenditure and revenue data items, but at different levels of the system:

It is expected that recurrent expenditure and related revenue data will be reported at the level at which they occur.

In addition to the shared expenditure and revenue data items, the PHE data element cluster includes items such as establishment location, establishment type and specialised service indicators that do not appear in the other data element clusters.

Scope links with other NMDSs

The PHE NMDS shares scope with the following other hospital NMDSs, and establishment and expenditure collections:

• Admitted patient care NMDS
• Alcohol and other drug treatment services NMDS
• Government health expenditure NMDS
• Mental health establishments NMDS
• Non-admitted patient care hospital aggregate NMDS
• Non-admitted patient emergency department care NMDS