Health Minister Nicola Roxon will outline today her plans for nurses, psychologists, physiotherapists and dieticians to take on more work traditionally performed by doctors.

Delivering the first Ben Chifley ''Light On The Hill'' speech since the election of the Rudd Government, Ms Roxon says the health system has previously been ''organised almost entirely around doctors''.

''Doctors will need to be prepared to let go of some work that others can safely do,'' she says. ''To ensure this transition, there needs to be an incentive for doctors to eschew less complex work, and focus on the work that does require their high-level skills and expertise.

''Or if doctors don't want to let go of it, to accept being paid less for devoting their highly skilled and heavily trained selves to less complex tasks than they might.''

Her plans would redress ''historical biases'' towards medical intervention and acute care and against the traditionally female nursing workforce.

Australian Medical Association president Rosanna Capolingua slammed the proposed changes.

''Overseas experience shows that putting in other layers of primary providers does not improve access to care, and in fact increases the cost because patients are being channelled to other providers first and then need to see a doctor anyway,'' she said. ''And she is threatening Australian patients with a reduction in their rebate for when they want and need to see a doctor. The health professionals that the minister has described are highly skilled and trained in their areas and doctors do not presume to do the work that those individuals do because of their skill set.

''Our concern is that patients must always go to the skilled person for their area of care. So if it's a doctor, they go to a doctor.

'' If they go to a physio, they go to a physio.''

Ms Roxon also flagged an end to the ''false contest'' between private and public health, declaring herself ''fundamentally agnostic'' and pledging to dramatically change the system to allow the Commonwealth ''to direct its funding to where it will get the biggest bang for its buck''.

''If private hospitals prove particularly adept at, say, elective surgeries, then we could consider redirecting more funding for elective surgery to private hospitals,'' Ms Roxon said.