This year has been a year of immense change and evolution for us and I would like to convey our thanks to all the health care professionals, community members, and partners who have supported us over the past 12 months.
2020 has been a year of growth and innovation across Western Sydney’s health sector as we continue to work in partnership to address the many health priorities and challenges in our path. Our latest Annual Review: Changing Landscapes provides a detailed insight into our many achievements throughout 2019/20. I encourage you to have a read.
Our experience with COVID-19 has reinforced our belief that we are ‘one system’ here in Western Sydney. As we prepared as one to meet the challenges of the day, it was heartening to see health professionals across sectors and organisations working together to deliver innovative and responsive health care to our community.
As the pandemic continued to evolve, we worked tirelessly with our partners – rolling out testing and assessment clinics, distributing PPE, setting up new communication channels and enhancing the capacity of the Western Sydney’s Hospital in the Home (HITH) program to reduce pressures on hospitals and emergency departments to free up capacity for the management of acute COVID-19 cases.
In collaboration with WSLHD we also oversaw the roll out of remote monitoring and shared care planning through our next generation platform, CareMonitor. This ensured low and medium risk cases of COVID-19 could be managed at home by General Practices and enabled virtual multidisciplinary team-based care for chronic conditions during a very difficult time. We supported our commissioned providers to deliver virtual healthcare overnight and worked in partnership with local, state and Commonwealth Governments to support the community of Western Sydney.
WentWest employees also quickly adapted to working from home, then readjusted to new requirements as we move to a new COVID normal of working arrangements to best support staff and community needs as they evolved each day. We are very proud to launch our Flexible Working and Wellbeing project this year, where we explored flexible working arrangements to adjust to the changing circumstances.
In partnership with Western Sydney Local Health District (WSLHD), we were selected as the lead PHN/LHD partnership in NSW Health’s Collaborative Commissioning Program, completing Phase 1 during 2020 with the roll out of new value-driven, outcome-focused, and patient-centred health care scheduled for roll out in 2021. Our growing partnerships with the WSLHD, the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network and many others through our Service Delivery Reform Coalition continued to break new ground as we look to scale many of the successful innovative models of care we have piloted.
As we reflect on all we have achieved during an extremely challenging time, on behalf of the WentWest team I would like to thank everyone for their support this year. We hope you get some down time in the coming weeks, replenish your energy, and focus on the people and passions in your life. Happy Holidays and all the very best for the New Year.
Office Closure
Our office will be closed for the holiday period from 1pm Thursday 24 December. We will re-open at 9am Monday 11 January 2021.