Are doctors the cornerstones of primary health care?, asks Tim Woodruff in his address to the Victorian Healthcare Association Conference. If they are currently, they shouldn't be. Patients should be. The fact that we have in this country a health system which uses a funding system for primary care centred around funding providers - not patients, not need - is a sad reflection that patients are no longer the cornerstone of primary care.

In response to their call for submissions on its Draft Principles for Australia's Health System and on its Terms of Reference, the Centre for Policy Development offered the NHHRC comments based on our own research and publications in the area of health policy reform.

Jennifer Doggett, Ian McAuley, and Denis King offer a few words of advice to the new members of the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission.

First published in Crikey, this is Jennifer Doggett's call for the $1.1bn shortfall in hospital funding to be redirected into primary care.

This article proposes a 'cooperative federalist' approach to funding and workforce integration with the aim of improving primary care across Australia over 5 to 10 years.

Dr Kerri Parnell writes that the key ingredient for healthy communities is investment in primary health care. While politicians and the media focus on the ?pointy end? of health care delivery, like access to specialists, hospital staffing and waiting lists, Parnell argues that the most effective path to long-term community health starts with your local GP