Thursday 30 June 2022
We are delighted to announce that 2022 marks the 10-year anniversary of the Immunisation Bike Competition in Western Sydney. We would like to extend a big thank you to all the practices who have partnered with WentWest over the years to help promote childhood immunisation to the parents of 12-month, 18-month and four-year-old children. Having so many GP practices involved in this promotion over the last 10 years has helped to deliver the message to Western Sydney families about the importance of protecting their children and the wider community from serious diseases that can cause ongoing health conditions.
WentWest started the competition to address the very low rate of immunisation for children under five years old in Western Sydney. There was an urgent need to educate parents and carers about the importance of having their child’s vaccinations up-to-date. The competition to win a bicycle and helmet provided a healthy incentive for parents to ensure that their children were immunised.
As it is the 10-year anniversary of the Program we are showing our appreciation to the following practices who have participated every year by presenting them with a trophy:
- Blackett Medical Practice – Dr Christopher C K Soo
- Darcy Road Surgery
- Eastbrooke Blacktown GP Super Clinic
- Ermington Family Medical Practice
- Greystanes Family Medical Practice
- Metella Road Family Practice
- MyHealth Medical Centre, Northmead
What We’ve Seen Over the Past 10 Years
Over the past 10 years of the competition, 17,363 children have been vaccinated during competition periods.
At its peak (just before the pandemic hit) we had 196 GP practices participating in the annual competition, which is around 60% of Western Sydney practices.
Dr Michael Fasher, GP Clinical Director at WentWest and general practitioner in Blacktown for 40 years has been closely involved with this initiative and said:
“I am very proud to be a general practitioner in Western Sydney and excited to watch the capacity of general practice flourish in partnership with WentWest. No more so than when I look back over the 10 years that this competition has made its mark.
Seeing a child suffer with a vaccine-preventable disease is horrible. That is now rare in Australia thanks to our well immunised population. This success makes it harder to convince people of the value of immunisation. The bike competition has played its part in keeping the rate of vaccination high in our communities.”
And speaking of impact; it still wets the eye to recall the year when a mother said, it is his birthday tomorrow – without this bike he would not have had a present.”
On Saturday 18 June we had our most recent bicycle presentation day. It was wonderful to see all the happy children looking forward to receiving their new bike and helmet.
The list of this year’s happy winners can be found on our Immunisation Bike Completion webpage
What the participating practices said about the latest Bike Competition
We’ve received so much positive feedback from practices.
In response to the question, ‘what worked well about the competition?’ we had great feedback about the gifts for the children and that the bikes were a great incentive to enter the competition. One practice remarked that “it involved the kids, making the vaccination more exciting. Leaving the treatment room with goodies, stickers, certificate, wrist band, colour pencils and a smile despite the jabs”.
Practices also commented that parents found it easy to enter the competition using the QR code and 73% said that they would be likely to recommend participating in the competition to colleagues in other practices
We hope that more GP practices will join with us in future WentWest initiatives to continue spreading the news about the importance of immunisation.