Our specialised team members provide support for general practice across South Western Sydney and continuously look for ways to improve access to primary care services for the community through workforce planning, consultation, commissioning and innovation.
Our focus is to ensure local communities are actively involved in the development and provision of health services that affect them.
Our objectives include:
- To identify and address health needs in our communities
- To support and develop improved primary health care delivery
- To develop and implement improved care pathways and models of care
- To commission health services to communities to close service gaps
We work with all major stakeholders in our region, including public, private and non-government organisations across the health sector. This facilitates the collective sharing of evidence, local knowledge and business intelligence by key stakeholders in a bid to counter fragmentation in the health system and assist in developing a strong local healthcare workforce.
Our local alliances and partnerships enhance our organisation and team commitment to see health service integration delivered across three levels of government, to support general practice in delivering quality primary health care to our local communities.
The workforce team functions align with SWSPHN Strategic Plan references:
- Developing innovative models that ensure quality care is delivered
- Providing access to timely and relevant resources and comms
- Engaging GPs and primary care professionals to ensure fit for purpose systems that contribute to improved health outcomes
- Developing evidence-based models of care for vulnerable and hard to reach population groups relevant to identified needs
- Implementing a system for ongoing provider learning, development and diversification and
- Monitoring and evaluating the performance of procured services to ensure demonstrable cost effectiveness, sustainability and scalability
- The Workforce Team includes three streams: Workforce Strategy, Workforce Engagement and Workforce Development.
The Workforce Team includes three streams:
Workforce Strategy
Focus areas:
- The development of a workforce strategy for South Western Sydney
- Developing tools and resources to support advocacy activities related to primary care workforce
- Contributing to the patient reported measures phase 3 business case development in partnership with the Agency for Clinical Innovation
- Workforce Planning and Prioritisation needs assessment for the Australian General Practice training transition from the Department of Health and Aged Care (DoHAC) to the Colleges (RACGP, ACRRM).
Workforce Engagement
Focus areas:
- Commissioning of urgent care
- Commissioning of multidisciplinary team care
- Engaging with practices relating to registrar placements and training
- Providing support to practices in matters relating to primary care workforce (e.g. letters of support)
- Administration of the GP grants
- Allied health practice support
Development
Focus areas:
- Continuing Professional Development
- Initial Assessment and Referral (IAR) decision support tool implementation and training. The IAR tool was developed to use the stepped care approach, assisting general practitioners and clinicians to recommend the most appropriate mental health services for their patients’ needs.
