The Pricing Authority is responsible for promoting improved efficiency in and access to public hospital services. They do this by providing independent advice to Australian governments in relation to the efficient costs of services, and developing and implementing robust systems to promote activity based funding for such services.

The Pricing Authority consists of a Chair, a Deputy Chair and seven other members.

Pricing Authority members are appointed for a period not greater than five years. The Chair is appointed by the Australian Government Minister for Health; the Deputy Chair is appointed with the agreement of First Ministers of all states and territories; and the remaining Pricing Authority members are appointed with the agreement of the Prime Minister and First Ministers of the states
and territories.

Members of the Pricing Authority bring significant and varied expertise to their role including substantial experience and knowledge of the health industry, healthcare needs, and the provision of health care in regional and rural areas.

The Pricing Authority is supported by a Chief Executive Officer, who is responsible for the day‑to‑day running of IHPA.

All Pricing Authority members are non-executive.

Mr Shane Solomon (Chair)

Shane Solomon has over 30 years of international and national healthcare management expertise. Shane currently provides health strategy and advisory services, and holds non‑executive director roles. Prior to this role, he was the founding Managing Director of Telstra Health, an e-health business within Telstra.

Previously, Shane was KPMG’s Partner in Charge, Healthcare. In this role, he worked with state and Australian Governments, along with private sector health organisations.

Shane was the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority, managing Hong Kong’s 57,000 public hospital staff. During his five-year tenure, he implemented significant funding and service quality reforms, including a casemix pay‑for‑performance model, and the ongoing development of a comprehensive integrated e-health system.

In Victoria, Shane was Under-Secretary of Health at the Department of Human Services (as it then was), where he was responsible for managing the funding system (including casemix) for Victoria, and performance and governance of Melbourne metropolitan health services. He was responsible for developing the Hospital Admission Risk Program, and implementing governance reforms in Victoria’s public hospital system.

Shane was the first Group Chief Executive Officer of the integrated Sisters of Mercy Victorian hospital and aged care services group, merging public hospitals, private hospitals, aged care services, and palliative care services into a single new organisation and expanding the Sisters of Mercy mission from five entities to twelve.

Mr Jim Birch (Deputy Chair)

Jim Birch is a board member of the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, the Australian Red Cross Society, Little Company of Mary Health Care, the Australian Digital Health Agency, Cancer Council of SA and Mary MacKillop Care SA.

Jim is a business consultant and was previously Global Health Leader of Ernst and Young, Lead Partner, Health and Human Services, and Government and Public Sector Lead Partner at Ernst and Young.

He has also held the position of Chief Executive of the Human Services and Health Department in South Australia.

Mr Glenn Appleyard

Glenn Appleyard was a member of the Australian Accounting Standards Board from 1 January 2003 to 31 December 2011.

Glenn has held several senior positions within the public service including Deputy Secretary in the Tasmanian and Victorian Departments of Treasury and Finance, and Regional Director for the Australian Bureau of Statistics in Tasmania.

He was a member of the Commonwealth Grants Commission for 11 years, and was also the Chair of the Tasmanian Economic Regulator. Glenn is currently the Chairman of PSMA Australia Ltd.

Associate Professor Bruce Chater

Associate Professor Bruce Chater is Head of the Academic Discipline of Rural and Remote Medicine at the University of Queensland. He performs these tasks from his rural base of Theodore, Queensland, where he continues as a practising rural doctor.

Bruce has been involved in ensuring that rural health services provide high quality and professional services to rural people. He was the founding convener of the Rural Doctors’ Association of Queensland and Australia, founding Chair of the National Rural Health Alliance, Secretary of the Rural Working Party of the World Organisation of Family Doctors (WONCA) and served as President of the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine.

Ms Prudence Ford

Prudence Ford is a member of the Health Consumers’ Council of WA. She was an inaugural member of the Medical Board of Australia, and was previously a member of the National Blood Authority, the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Brightwater Care Group Board and the Western Australian Medical Board.

Prudence has had 30 years’ experience in the public service at Commonwealth and state levels. She has held senior executive positions in the then Commonwealth Departments of Community Services and Health, Finance, and the Attorney General, and in the Western Australian Departments of Health, and the Premier and Cabinet.

She was also an independent consultant for several years, undertaking a range of reviews, inquiries and projects for both the government and non‑government sectors.

Prudence’s experience encompasses policy development, program implementation, and delivery and corporate services.

Professor Jane Hall

Professor Jane Hall is Distinguished Professor of Health Economics in the Business School at the University of Technology, Sydney. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences.

Jane has worked across many areas of health economics, including health technology assessment, measurement of quality of life, end of life care, health workforce, the economics of primary care, and funding and financing issues.

Jane established the Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation in 1990, and she remains in the Centre as Director, Strategy. She is engaged in health policy issues internationally through her involvement with the Commonwealth Fund International Program in Health Policy and Practice.

Jane has held many advisory and board positions and she is a former member of the board of the Bureau of Health Information. She is actively involved in policy analysis and critique, and is a regular commentator on health funding and organisational issues in Australia.

Dr Kate Taylor

Dr Kate Taylor is the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Oculo, an internet‑based platform for clinicians to share patient information. Kate is a member of the Australian Digital Health Agency’s Clinical and Technical Advisory Committee. She was previously involved with the Board of the Mental Health Cooperative Research Centre in Australia, and internationally with the boards of Roll Back Malaria, Stop TB, and the GAVI Alliance.

Kate initially trained as an ophthalmologist, and also holds a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University as a Fulbright Scholar. She has worked in strategy, policy and advocacy with McKinsey & Company, the World Economic Forum’s Global Health Initiative, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, and GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals. She brings experience in innovative partnerships, spanning new vaccine development through to innovative health financing, including the multi‑billion dollar Advanced Market Commitment for pneumococcal vaccines and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Dr Michael Walsh

Dr Michael Walsh is Chief Executive of Cabrini Health, a private not-for-profit Catholic health service in Melbourne, Australia. He was recruited from Doha, Qatar, where he was Chief Executive of the National Health Authority. Prior to this, he worked in London, England as Chief Executive, South East London Strategic Health Authority.

Michael is a Fellow and current Vice President of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators, and a Fellow of the Australasian College of Health Service Managers. Michael is a member of the Catholic Health Australia Stewardship Board, and he chairs the Health Policy Sub-Committee.

Michael has held a range of senior hospital and health department positions in Victoria and Western Australia. He has over 25 years’ experience in health service policy and management, in both public and private sectors.

Ms Jennifer Williams

Jennifer Williams holds a number of board positions, including Chair of Northern Health, Yooralla and Alfred Whole Time Medical Specialist Trust.

She is also a member of the Australian Medical Research Advisory Board, and a Director of InfoXchange and Barwon Health. She has previously held the positions of Chief Executive of the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, Chief Executive of Alfred Health, and Chief Executive of Austin Health. She has also held senior management positions in the public and private sectors, including Director in the Victorian Department of Human Services.

Meetings of the Pricing Authority 2018–19

Meetings of the Pricing Authority 2018–19

The Pricing Authority met on 11 occasions between 1 July 2018 and 30 June 2019. The Chief Executive Officer, James Downie, as the accountable authority, attended all 11 meetings.