With increasing pressure on rural and regional health services, a central Victorian primary health network believes the provision of healthcare cannot continue within existing structures.
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A Murray Primary Health Network's (PHN) report has detailed the challenges facing communities and health professionals.
The report says recent royal commissions and government inquiries have shown Australia is facing issues with out-of-pocket costs, and the availability and equitable access to person-centred, integrated care.
According to Murray PHN Strategy and Evaluation director Dr Belinda O'Sullivan, it is increasingly unlikely organisations can continue to provide care by working within existing structures.
"So much of our health service planning operates at a national level, with the input of many national organisations and interest groups," she said.
"But increasingly we can see that the most effective planning - especially in rural and regional primary healthcare - must be done at a grass roots level, by the people and professionals who know the community best.
"This planning needs government support for mixed funding models and it really needs collaboration between primary, secondary and tertiary health services and governments to succeed."
The report comes in the same week as following a decision by the Bendigo Primary Care Centre to ditch bulk billing and switch to a private billing model.
For the community, the cost of going to doctors and allied health services and the distances to get there are problematic.
First Nations communities and other cultural groups and ageing populations with chronic and complex conditions are often the hardest hit.
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Murray PHN chief executive Matt Jones said one of the roles of primary health networks was to help build "bottom-up" models of healthcare that have strong regional governance and are effective in rural communities.
"Instead of simple fee-for-service funding models, increasingly we need long-term planning and support for communities to grow their own workforce and build systems and structures that provide high-quality healthcare as close to home as possible, but also help professionals to work in satisfying and sustainable jobs," he said.
"It is still early days, but our Integrated Health Network project in the Loddon, Gannawarra and Buloke shires is already demonstrating the willingness of health professionals, health services and local government to work together to plan high-quality healthcare, close to home, in areas that matter to these communities."
Murray PHN's latest report Primary Healthcare Workforce (and other reports in the series, including mental health and aged care) can be found at murrayphn.org.au/murrayhealthreport
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