The ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, finalisation of redevelopments and changes to the health system both locally and nationally are some of the reasons why GV Health decided to reduce its recently released strategic plan from five years to three.
It also gives GV Health a tighter time frame to achieve its proposed outcomes.
And on Friday, February 16, the strategic plan for 2024-26 was officially launched.
The plan outlines GV Health’s process to improve its healthcare system in the next three years.
The plan consists of five strategic pillars — each targeting a different area of its service, and under each pillar’s objective are three outcomes to be achieved.
These pillars are:
- Health and wellbeing outcomes for people in the region
- Improving community and consumer experience
- Enhancing staff experience
- Sustainability and efficiency of a responsible workplace
- Providing health equity to consumers
The last pillar, health equity, is the newest addition to the strategic plan.
Chief executive Matt Sharp said it was a pillar that emerged from a focus in the previous plan.
“We did have a dedicated focus in our last plan on improving health and wellbeing outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and that’s a key outcome that comes under pillar ‘health equity’,” Mr Sharp said.
“But we’ve extended that and included two more outcomes.”
These outcomes include closing the gap between rural and metropolitan health and wellbeing outcomes and working to improve these outcomes for the Goulburn Valley’s diverse and vulnerable communities.
As part of its previous strategic plan, GV Health aimed to lessen the number of occupational violence and aggression incidents towards staff.
Due to improved education and campaigns on occupational violence, this was achieved, with recent numbers showing only 10 incidents in the 2022-23 financial year, down from 223 in 2020-21.
Mr Sharp said this would continue to be a focus under its staff experience pillar.
The past plan also saw most of stage one of the Graham St campus redevelopments completed.
Mr Sharp said the remainder of these smaller redevelopments were set to be finalised in the next six months, bringing the redevelopments up to 50 per cent complete.
In March last year, it was confirmed that the Victorian Government would not fund stage two of the redevelopments.
However, under the new strategic plan, there are aspects of stage two that GV Health is looking to complete, including an expanded integrated cancer centre, enhanced staff accommodation, an early parenting centre, and a youth prevention and recovery centre.
“Moving forward with the expanded integrated cancer centre, we have $30 million committed to the project from the Federal Government, but we’re working closely with the Victorian Government to be able to leverage that funding,” Mr Sharp said.
“And our advocacy efforts for the rest of stage two will continue.”
The Community Advisory Committee is one of the groups that will have a say in improving the community and consumer experience.
Committee chairman Simon Humphrey said he was eager to see what changes would be brought to the table under the new plan.
“I think there will be a much stronger interaction between GV Health and community, and probably just more interaction with the community in a general sense,” Mr Humphrey said.
“The fact that it’s a three-year plan shows that while you need to be able to pivot and be dynamic, it’s broken down better — it’s achievable.”
If you want a say in GV Health services, the CAC is looking for more committee members.
To find out more information about this or get an application pack, email consumerpartners@gvhealth.org.au or call 5832 2258.
For the whole strategic plan, visit tinyurl.com/2sh6t8nk