The Central Hume Primary Partnership is a voluntary alliance of community health, local government and other health care providers working together to establish and implement a common framework for promoting and delivering primary health care services across the region. By bringing together the organisations at the health system's first point of entry, such as general practice, hospitals, local government and many more, the Partnership works to ensure cohesion and coordination between its members and the services they provide.
At the core of the Partnership's work is an ongoing mission to strengthen inter-agency coordination in the areas of needs identification, planning, service delivery and health promotion. These main aims of the partnership are key contributors to the building of a healthy and resilient community across the four areas of Alpine Shire, Benalla Rural City, Mansfield Shire and the Rural City of Wangaratta.
The CHPCP 2009-2012 Strategic Plan shows both the necessary changes to current PCP activity and the direction the Partnership will take in the future. The plan lists the following 4 key priorities:
1. Strengthening partnerships
2. Creating healthy communities
3. Coordination and access
4. Inclusion and resilience
With these priorities in mind, the PCP can work to achieve the goals of the Victorian Department of Health (DoH) and provide better service coordination and delivery for the community.
The main difficulty identified by the PCP in the 2009-2012 Strategic Plan is surrounding the definition of the Partnership and its actions within such a diverse membership group. Building on the plans, projects and partnerships that are embedded in our community already, the Partnership aims to improve the health system through locally identified issues and state health initiatives alike, always ensuring the community's needs come first.
The CHPCP's core values are:
•Approaching our work with integrity, always putting community interest and client experience first
•Celebrating the diversity of people and organisations who all play an important role in achieving our mission
•Being inclusive in our approaches to developing local solutions
By approaching projects and initiatives with the values of the PCP in mind, we are able to achieve our core goals and thus better service coordination and improve integration of health promotion and chronic disease management.
A key element of the Central Hume PCP and our 2009-2012 strategic plan is the newly established Executive Group which consists of 9 leaders from PCP members and local governments. By aligning partnership interactions with local government structures and taking an approach that acknowledges existing and ongoing local planning, consultation, initiatives and partnerships, we can play a more enhanced role in our communities. This will improve the PCP governance structure to more effectively deliver on the mission, values and strategies of the partnership.
