Health Workforce

Health workforce is an essential enabler that helps us to achieve our vision of equitable health outcomes for all Western Australians. By working with general practice and other health professionals, we are delivering better health together.

Our Priorities

• Supporting primary healthcare providers to manage chronic disease populations and build capacity for patient self-management.
• Increasing access to allied health services and chronic disease management programs provided by allied health practitioners.
• Building general practice workforce capability to recognise and respond to alcohol and other drug related issues.
• Ensuring the capacity and capability of general practice in delivering urgent care is better utilised.

Key Activities

Non-Dispensing Pharmacist in General Practice Program: A program placing non-dispensing pharmacists into Comprehensive Primary Care Practices to facilitate the trialling of principles from the Quadruple Aim and the 10 Building Blocks of High Performing Primary Care.

GP Urgent Care: Laid the groundwork for an 18-month pilot to enhance capacity within community-based GP clinics to care for patients with urgent but non–life-threatening medical conditions, delivered in partnership with the Department of Health WA. It will help to decrease the almost one fifth of emergency department attendances that could be avoided by people seeking treatment in general practice.

Key Achievements

• Enabled general practices to trial an innovative team-based care model through the Communities of Practice program.
• Integrated new health professionals into general practices, such as non-dispensing pharmacists and counsellors, with three of the six participating practices going on to employ their own pharmacist.
• Upskilled general practice reception staff to perform basic triage, source clinical information in patient files and assist with sterilising and organising pathology thus enabling health practitioners within the practice to work at the top of their scope.
• Finalised a model of GP urgent care that uses existing capacity and capability in general practice, with urgent care appointments able to be viewed and booked online.
• Received more than 120 expressions of interest from general practices in participating in the GP Urgent Care Pilot.
• Collaborated with the Royal Australian College of General Practice (WA) to update GPs in their urgent care skills.

Case Studies

Kick starting conversations about alcohol and other drugs

Giving GPs the confidence and skills to talk about difficult topics opens up a wealth of possibilities

Alcohol and Other Drugs

Brokering solutions to the urgent care conundrum

Our ability to bring the right parties to the table delivered a level playing field for general practices involved in the urgent care pilot

Health Workforce