On 11 October 2023, our CEO, Ray Messom, was invited by Stephen Bali, Honourable Member for Blacktown, to present the outcomes of our recent Community Panels to NSW parliament. There were over 80 people in attendance, including representatives from our community panels and 20 members of parliament. Hon David Harris, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Treaty, Minister for Gaming and Racing, Minister for Veterans, Minister for Medical Research, and Minister for the Central Coast, and Mr Mark Owen Taylor, Shadow Minister for Western Sydney and Shadow Minister for Corrections, responded in support of our vision to address complex health issues by creating a platform for community voices.
Ray’s speech is outlined below.
Thank you to the Honourable Member for Blacktown, Stephen Bali, for this wonderful opportunity.
I would first like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, on whose land we meet and pay my respect to all First Nations people present.
As I speak today about the outcomes of our recent community panels, I remember how fortunate WentWest is to support community on the lands of the Darug people. Lands that belong to the oldest civilisation on Earth. A civilisation that has practised community governance for over 75,000 years.
WentWest has been a part of the Western Sydney community for over 20 years, through the ebbs and flows of many governments regardless of colour. We have worn many hats – supporting the community as a Regional Training Provider, a Division of General Practice, a Medicare Local and for a short period as the Aboriginal Medical Service.
Today, as the Western Sydney Primary Health Network, we are responsible for commissioning services into areas of need and supporting, educating and integrating primary and community care with the broader health and social care systems.
To do this, we work with many amazing partners – 340 general practices, 242 pharmacies, 84 Residential Aged Care Facilities and many others. We contract services with over 470 providers.
Our partners play an integral role, yet it is, first and foremost, the voice of our community that helps shape and determine our vision for health system reform.
When WentWest embarked on this journey to trial community panels in NSW, we did so to help address the isue of inequity.
Western Sydney has one of the most diverse, fastest-growing populations in Australia.
- 53% of our residents were born outside of Australia.
- 58% use a language other than English at home.
So, how do we make sure that our health services respond to the needs of so many diverse voices?
How do we make sure that our communities have the information, awareness and agency to shape their own outcomes?
In Western Sydney, our answer is a community panel, sometimes called a citizen assembly.
In September of this year, we completed two community panels. One panel was representative of our culturally diverse population, and the other represented our First Nations community.
Each panel was designed as a representative sample of the community in terms of age, gender, employment, education and lived experiences.
Twenty citizens were invited to participate in each panel, chosen from a ballot, coming together to provide one community voice to answer the question, ‘Should we, the people of Western Sydney, continue to invest in the health system in the same way that we have in the past?’.
They listened to evidence from a range of experts on mental health, child and family, aged care, palliative care, acute care, alcohol and other drugs, emergency services, primary care, social care and many other domains.
They spent time deliberating, and finally, they collectively decided on the top priorities ‘for the public good’.
So, what did our communities prioritise?
1. Both panels wanted more investment in prevention.
We currently spend $8,600 on health per person per year to help care for people who become sick. It seems we as a society have chosen to spend $89 per person per year to prevent illness.
The people of Western Sydney spoke passionately about the need to address this inequity.
2. Both panels wanted a new approach to supporting the early years.
They stressed the importance of connecting early childhood services that ensure the entire family receive wraparound support, not just the child. They spoke about the importance of family, especially when there is a child under five in the household, but that far too often, the ‘system’ only sees the individual.
One expert was quoted saying, “The system is deeply functional, but I don’t think it is functional for the people that it claims to represent.”
3. Our First Nation’s panel time and time again stressed the importance of embedding cultural safety, in all its senses, across all aspects of the health and social care system.
The panel wanted to support the building of capability in First Nations people to be mentored in health, social care, employment, school and other programs.
4. Both panels wanted team-based primary care close to home, including navigators, peer workers and coordinators to support existing GPs.
In the UK, there are ten supportive team members for every GP. In Australia, there is one.
5. Both panels wanted to have health and social care that is connected, not siloed.
They wanted government departments to work better together.
Both panels recognised the strength of community-based care and that information and awareness is often the key to harnessing local support.
The people wanted to build on existing assets in the community and find ways to encourage community-led development.
When we asked participants at the end of each community panel whether they wanted to continue to invest in health care the way we have been, nobody put their hand up.
Moving forward, our intention is to make community panels a permanent approach in Western Sydney to listen to the well-informed voices of the people.
The people want to see governments invest in place-based, relationship-based, connected care that is informed and designed by the people who are affected.
In closing, I’d like to leave you with some parting words from the late Scott Peck:
“There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.”
Information correct as of 19 October 2023.