From the Board Chair: Response to commentary on discontinuation of PCPs

In light of the recent commentary circulating amongst the sector regarding the discontinuation of the Primary Care Partnership (PCP) program, Caz Healy, chair of HealthWest’s Management Group, has written the following response:

Victoria is home to 28 PCPs that connect more than 800 organisations across various sectors. Each PCP works to respond to the needs of their community, share their skills, and align their efforts to have a lasting impact. They have grown significantly in size and reputation over the last 19 years, demonstrated through their increasing membership.

HealthWest Partnership, in the local government areas of; Maribyrnong, Wyndham, Brimbank, Melton and Hobsons Bay, plays a vital role in improving the health and wellbeing of the community. By bringing together diverse partners, we can work on agreed priorities and outcomes. These efforts ensure we have local solutions that align with the Municipal Public Health & Wellbeing Plans and the Victorian Public Health & Wellbeing Plan.

We have a strong commitment to health equity and preventing poor health outcomes and have delivered local systems improvements in key reform areas, through shared leadership, evidence building and workforce development.

Recognising that our robust partnership combined with local collaborative action is the key to our success, we work to strengthen connections between organisations to deliver wellbeing initiatives.

Recently we have:

• Developed a Social Inclusion Practice Guide to support partners to strengthen their community engagement practices

• Developed a set of Workforce Mutuality Standards to address the diversity gap in the health and community services workforce

• Created a health literacy handbook to support organisations to become more accessible and deliver better outcomes to consumers

• Created a service model that is at the forefront of engaging men in the prevention of violence against women and is bravely and boldly aiming to support men to become allies for equity and change.

Project Momentum: Senior Male Allies presented their project ideas to the Women’s Accountability Panel and project partners in May 2019

• Created a Diabetes Out West website to ensure people with diabetes have the knowledge and information to access local services.

Since their establishment in 2000, Primary Care Partnerships (PCPs) have been committed to supporting government respond to the challenge of delivering a health and social service system that provides quality accessible care and that represents best value and best practice.  We have a strong existing partnership platform for the State Government to use to deliver positive community outcomes and a workforce highly skilled in facilitating and enabling organisations and community come together to work on specific wellbeing initiatives.

By Caz Healy,

Chair of HealthWest Partnership Management Group

More information

• View HealthWest’s most recent achievements in the last financial year 2018-19
• Browse through HealthWest’s recent resources and project evaluation reports
• Read case study examples from around Victoria demonstrating PCPs contribution to better health and wellbeing outcomes
• Read Victorian Primary Care Partnerships’ media releases from 11 September and 3 October
• Check out this recent infograpic on PCP’s value add and return on investment (image below)