Rehabilitation service delivery: audit tool for best practice

3. Funding

This is one of eight audit templates that form the Rehabilitation service delivery: audit tool for best practice.

This tool enables rehabilitation services to plan and review their practice to identify areas that will improve service delivery and patient outcomes. It can also be useful for teams involved in planning and establishing new rehabilitation services.

This template focuses on funding. It is to be completed by the local health district, specialty health network, affiliated health organisation or the private health provider of rehabilitation services. For the best result, involve a range of staff in the discussions.

Core element rating scale

N/A	0	1	2	3	4
Not applicable	Not achieved	Rarely achieved	Sometimes achieved	Often achieved	Always achieved

Instructions

After discussing each core element with members of the working group, agree on the rating, and note the evidence to support this rating.

Use the action plans to note areas for improvement, key actions and who is responsible.

For more information about the audit tool, visit: https://aci.health.nsw.gov.au/networks/rehabilitation/resources/audit-tool

3. Funding

Organisation/health service: Date:

Team/s:

No.	Core elements	Organisational rating N/A 0 1 2 3 4	Supporting evidence
3.1	The organisation’s budget for rehabilitation is developed with a strong understanding of the way in which the rehabilitation service operates in inpatient, outpatient and community settings.
3.2	The scope of services is planned and funded in accordance with the NSW Health Guide to the Role Delineation of Clinical Services (2021) and Australasian Health Facility Guidelines.
3.3	The rationale for the annual budget is provided to the rehabilitation service.
3.4	Rehabilitation services understand the implications of activity-based funding and work with local costing and coding teams to improve documentation to support appropriate coding.
3.5	Processes are in place to manage underspend and overspend variations in the budget.
3.6	Yearly budgets are reviewed and adjusted based on the prior year’s activity and performance and anticipated future service needs. Consideration of future service needs may include a review of: patient case-mix and levels of complexity impact of National Disability Insurance Scheme and aged care on length of stay workforce impacts and challenges use of beds and other settings of care changes in technology.
3.7	Rehabilitation services are provided with adequate funding to ensure an appropriate number of trained rehabilitation staff are available for all shifts, including weekends.
3.8	Rehabilitation services are provided with adequate funding to ensure an appropriate skill mix and experience of staff to meet the needs and complexities of rehabilitation clients. Recommended skill mix for the inpatient setting is outlined in the Australasian Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine standards for the provision of inpatient adult rehabilitation medicine services in public and private hospitals (2019).
3.9	Systems and processes are in place to ensure appropriate care of non-Medicare eligible patients.
3.10	There is a documented and executed process for identifying and accessing external funding sources for patients while in hospital and transitioning to the community, e.g. National Disability Insurance Agency, Lifetime Care and private health insurance.
3.11	The organisation provides rehabilitation services with the opportunity to make internal and external funding bids to meet identified service delivery gaps.

Funding action plan

Date:

Core element #	Area for improvement	Action/s	Person responsible	Due date

Published November 2023. Next review 2028. ACI/D23/3804 (ACI) SHPN (ACI) 230798-1 [ACI_4923]

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