Following the release of the 2022-23 federal budget - widely criticised for offering short term cash solutions, while failing to address long term issues in priority sectors - Tasmanian independent public health analyst Martyn Goddard said whoever wins the federal election must address four key health issues.

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For Tasmanian voters, the warning is a call to action, with a recent report by Mr Goddard, drawn from Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data, found Tasmania had the worst public hospital system nationally across four areas.

Of the four categories, Tasmanian hospitals performed the worst by far, coming last in cost efficiency, bed block, elective surgery, and third last in productivity.

With the state of Tasmania's public hospitals, a symptom of larger issues, Mr Goddard said there were four key issues the incoming government needed to address to reduce the pressure and develop long-term sustainable health care.

Public hospitals have struggled nationally since federal funding was cut in 2014, with Mr Goddard saying the pressure facing the Launceston General Hospital was emblematic of the funding issue.

"Of 278 hospitals in Australia with emergency departments - public hospitals - the LGH has the worst bed block," he said.

"Under the last Labor government, in federal government, there was a major funding stream for hospital infrastructure, that went in the 2014 Tony Abbott budget, and this has never been replaced, so that needs to come back as a matter of great urgency."

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The Australian Medical Association has called on the federal government to increase its share of public hospital funding from 45 per cent to 50 per cent and remove the 6.5 cap on federal funding growth.

With neither request being addressed in the budget, AMA president Dr Omar Khorshid said the organisation would press the issue at the federal election and called on both parties to commit to the changes.

"The next government will need to act," he said.

"The major parties are on notice we will be pushing this case all the way to polling day because Australians are clearly saying they want a focus on healthcare, and they expect a health system which is able to meet their family and community's needs."

Workforce planning was also identified as one of the top issues where Tasmania fell short, with Mr Goddard saying an injection of staff into the state's public hospitals would increase efficiency and move patients through hospitals faster.

"As hospitals become more and more overcrowded, staff work less efficiently and costs escalate," he said.

"We need a great many more nurses, we need a massive boost to the nursing workforce, and we need to make nursing more attractive - there are two ways of doing that.

"One is they need more money, but also, they need to know that when they go to work, they're not going to step into the work situation of such chaos and pressure that they've got at the moment.

"The reason that the LGH is arguably the least capable hospital in the country, and certainly it is now and has been for a very long time, it's got the worst bed block in the country."

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Australian Nurses and Midwifery Federation state secretary Emily Shepherd said Tasmania's peak nursing union was calling for funds to develop and implement an evidence-based nursing, midwifery, and care-worker workforce planning strategy.

"There is no question that the health system in Tasmania is under enormous strain as is the health workforce," she said.

"Urgent investment in the nursing and midwifery workforce is required to improve retention and recruitment.

She said the investment could be achieved with an uplift in the commonwealth activity funding, allowing the state government to re-invest additional funds back into Tasmania's health workforce.

While the budget saw Medicare allocated $31.4 billion for 2022-23, an increase of $7.3 billion on the previous year, many in the healthcare community have said the commitment was not enough.

Following the release of the budget, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Dr Karen Price said general practice was under enormous pressure with a greater increase to Medicare required.

Despite the allocation of $176 million for new and amended items, Mr Goddard said average people would still fall through the cracks.

"These were big-ticket items as far as the budget papers are concerned, but there's nothing really there, and there's nothing there to prevent the situation getting much worse," he said.

"In terms of Medicare, if you go to a specialist, if you go to a physician or a surgeon then the bulk-billing rate is 34 per cent, of all the services Medicare pays a lot in only 34 per cent."

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He said Medicare had fundamentally changed since its inception in the 80s and with some people being priced out of healthcare, significant reform was required by the incoming government.

"Medicare is not doing its job, and that is going to be a big reform job, it's not going to be simple,'' he said.

"Getting back to where we should be is going to be complicated and expensive, but out of pocket costs are keeping a large proportion of the Australian population out of healthcare."

Mr Goddard said right across the country, GPs and rural medical services needed support, with Tasmania's rural sector no different.

"We're not playing doctors enough, we're not making rural clinical practice attractive enough, so many young doctors in training are deciding, "I don't want to be a GP, I'll go and be a specialist" where you earn much more money and the jobs easier," he said.

RACGP Tasmania president Dr Tim Jackson said the college was calling for a significant investment in rural and remote GPs, with a focus on incentivising doctors into the field.

He said greater workforce incentives with additional payments for doctors who brought advanced skills to rural practice were needed.

Dr Jackson also said access to MBS items for rural GPs with advanced skills in internal medicine, mental health, paediatrics, palliative care, and emergency was needed to increase retention and recruitment.

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