Message from our CEO

It’s been an interesting time since I joined SEMPHN. COVID-19 has been a constant in the lives of our staff, health professionals and broader community and continued to influence our priorities. 

During the year, SEMPHN continued to further our assistance to primary care providers to respond to the pandemic and support the COVID-19 vaccination roll-out. As we moved into a ‘post’ pandemic phase, we facilitated the design of localised care pathways for managing COVID positive cases in the community, in which general practice plays a critical and valued role.

With strong relationships across local health services, as well as a deep understanding of community needs, regional constraints, and local opportunities, SEMPHN continues to perform an important role in bringing community and primary health care providers together.

Barriers to the provision of primary health care, and the most appropriate solutions, vary across our catchment. Local knowledge, collaboration and shared decision-making position SEMPHN well to work with stakeholders to design relevant, best practice and place-based solutions, a key plank of the Primary Health Care 10 Year Plan. 

Building Capability in 2023

In the future SEMPHN’s program of work will increasingly be informed by even better digital health and data-driven initiatives. We’re already seeing improvements through our mental health system dynamics modelling, innovative mental health initiatives, and the fruition of new aged care programs.

This allows us to advocate for better primary health care for our community at multiple levels. There remains much room for improvement in the health of First Nations people, and this will continue to be a focus as we shape our future strategies. There’s no doubt COVID-19 and its impact will be with us for some time. We’re learning to live beyond COVID and manage it in the community to minimise the risk to our most vulnerable populations. We recognise that to do this we must work across multiple levels to ensure we deliver and commission services that are best suited to the communities within our catchment.

As we work towards implementing SEMPHN’s new Strategic Plan I want to express my heartfelt thanks to the many outstanding GPs, practice staff, and many other primary health care providers who we have the privilege of working with and who have worked tirelessly to ensure our community is safe from the worst of the pandemic.

As you read our Annual Report, you will see the achievements of our skilled team throughout 2021-2022. Through the commitment, energy, and teamwork of SEMPHN staff, Board, Board Committees and the Clinical and Community Council, we have remained focused on improving the health and wellbeing of the people of south east Melbourne. Notably, our collaboration with Monash Health and Alfred Health in facilitating secondary psychiatric consultations meant that many more patients could get the mental health help they needed. Our work connecting refugees with primary health care succeeded because of exemplary teamwork across tertiary and primary care. 

Importantly I’d like to acknowledge our staffs’ agility, resilience and desire to evolve over the last 12 months. We’ve continued to need to work differently, and often remotely.

Whilst we’ve been physically distanced, staff have worked hard to maintain strong connections with both colleagues and those we support. Good organisations rely on the wise counsel and robust oversight of its Directors and to this end I would like to express my thanks to Directors and the members of Clinical and Community Council for their insights, guidance and dedication.

Next year is sure to be a year filled with continued evolution, support and focus on who we serve. I am particularly looking forward to us continuing to rise to the challenge of improving primary health for both the outstanding people who deliver it and for the many and diverse communities that rely on it to live healthy and productive lives.