Former federal health minister Greg Hunt says state governments should pay private hospitals to shorten long waiting lists for medical procedures in public wards and help keep a struggling industry afloat.

Hunt is now a senior adviser at Alvarez & Marsal and co-author of a paper that assesses how to make the private health sector – and its 600 hospitals – viable. One of his key recommendations is to resurrect the integration of private and public hospitals he oversaw during the COVID-19 pandemic.