Tonight's Budget largely insulated health from major cuts in spending and provided a welcome boost to cancer services, but it failed to plug gaps in public hospital funding – a gap that risks coming back to haunt the Government in the lead-up to the Federal election.

Catholic Health Australia CEO Martin Laverty said Government efforts to fund important reforms in education and disability care could, in time, improve social determinants of health in a country that is currently burdened by unacceptable levels of health inequity. Thankfully, fears that funding those services could have resulted in larger health funding cuts have not been realised.

Catholic Health Australia Stewardship Board chair Rowena McNally has been named a board director of the International Committee of Catholic Health Care Institutions, joining Catholic health leaders from around the globe on the Vatican-appointed body.

The appointment of Ms McNally, who has been CHA's chair since August 2012, was announced last week, just two weeks after the president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, visited Australia. He spent time at a number of Catholic hospitals and aged care facilities during his 11-day visit.

A survey of aged care providers reveals one in five will not sign up to the Government's Aged Care Workforce Compact, and a further one in five are unlikely to sign up, putting success of Government plans to tie aged care funding to workplace industrial conditions in doubt.

Catholic providers of 4,318 residential aged care places and 3,327 home care packages responded to the Catholic Health Australia (CHA) survey this month, following the Government's release of details of the Aged Care Workforce Compact.

Two of the largest organisations representing non-government agencies in Australia are calling on politicians across Commonwealth, state and territory governments to implement the recommendations contained in the Senate Community Affairs Committee's report on action on the social determinants of health.

Catholic Health Australia and UnitingCare Australia this morning said their organisations have a long tradition of working to ensure people who are vulnerable, marginalised or living in poverty receive the support they need and deserve. In many cases, those people are susceptible to long-term and chronic health conditions, and governments have a duty to help Australians avoid such circumstances.

Hundreds of thousands of Australians are suffering from ill health because health reforms implemented in recent years aren't having an impact on their lives. Catholic Health Australia CEO Martin Laverty says it's time for political parties to get serious about improving the health of all Australians.

Catholic Health Australia (CHA) today released its Health Blueprint, which outlines six key priorities for how ongoing health reform can be effective and reach those seemingly untouched by previous reforms.

Click here to access the Health Blueprint

The Aged Care Workforce Compact, announced today by Minister Mark Butler, will not see all aged care staff receive pay increases and will not change aged care's low wage status, according to a member of the Minister's Advisory Group that advised on the Compact's content.

Catholic Health Australia CEO, Martin Laverty, who represented Catholic aged care providers on the Minister's consultative group, said it was not clear how many aged care services would take up the new Compact.