SWH recognised as best in the State

The health service was awarded a top honour for keeping people healthy and safe in the community for its school readiness program, as well as awarded the ‘Medium Health Service of the Year award’, awarded by the Premier. (It is the second time South West Healthcare has been given the honour, having also won the title in 2019.)

The Premier’s Health Service of the Year Awards are Victoria’s most prestigious accolade to which a health service can nominated. These awards recognise leadership and excellence in the provision of publicly funded healthcare for the Victorian community.

“We are thrilled to be recognised in this way, our service has experienced extraordinary growth in terms of the number of programs and services we offer since we last won this award in 2019, which considering the challenges of COVID in the intervening years is a great effort by our staff.  Our teams continue to work hard every day to meet the challenges and demands of providing care to our community,” says South West Healthcare CEO, Craig Fraser.

“In particular, this is great acknowledgement and thanks for the tireless work the staff and teams dedicate to improving the health and wellbeing of our communities, and this award is for them.  We often focus on the areas we need to improve, and this won’t stop, but I hope the community join SWH and our people in celebrating the great things that do occur.’

South West Healthcare was singled out for the award based on the organisations ability to provide timely and least intrusive care, culturally safe care for all members of the community and a supportive workplace for staff.

“In the last 12-18 months we have established public specialist outpatient clinics and recruited a number of new specialists to our medical teams. So far we have treated more than 10,000 patients through these newly established clinics which give people access to specialist care through public clinics, which is something we’re very proud to offer in a sub-regional setting,” says Fraser.

“In the last year we have also extended some of our programs to work with other regional partners, such as the Hospital Admission Risk Program, which now partners with Timboon and District Health, Terang Mortlake Health Service and Moyne Health Service.

“We have extended our care outside of the hospital with the Hospital in the Home program, the COVID-19 Remote Patient Monitoring Program and the GEM@Home and GAED programs, which allow people to be cared for within the comfort of their home or expedite their care in ED and avoid unnecessary hospitalisation.

“Some of these innovations were born out of a need to continue to provide care during COVID, when people were less able or less likely to come to hospital, and some of these programs are the result of years of planning and recruiting coming to fruition which has been exciting to see. Teams across all departments have really never taken their foot off the pedal despite a busy and tiring few years and have continued to work hard.

“We do our best to play a leadership role within the region providing support to other health services for things like biomedical engineering, clinical trials, linen and logistics, product development, provision of mental health services and dental and testing as well as medical and nursing training and development.”

As well as taking out the top award in its category South West Healthcare was also nominated as a finalist in two other categories:

• Keeping people safe and well in the community – for its School Readiness program and;
• Creating a sustainable and climate resilient health care industry – for its efforts to reduce single-use plastics and clinical consumables.

“We are also really pleased that two of our other programs have been recognised as finalists in the awards – our School Readiness Program, which provides allied health support to more than 50 kindergartens, and our Compostable Clinical Consumable Program which has so far removed 1.2 million pieces of single-use plastic from landfill, by working with suppliers to create and prototype compostable alternatives,” says Fraser.

The School Readiness Program was also a winner on the night, recognised as one of the states best programs for early intervention in kindergartens and for its ability to provide children and families with a sense of safety and wellbeing.

The School Readiness Program is run by a multi-disciplinary team at SWH who provide around fifty kindergartens across the south-west with early childhood educator and parent support to help identify pre-school aged children that may benefit from early intervention from allied health professionals. This includes speech pathology, occupational therapy, and social work, via early, fully funded interventions.

By providing kindergarten educators with additional skills and knowledge to be able to identify students who need support, and provide them with extra assistance, it is hoped that that program is able to better set children up to thrive and learn once they start school.

Some of the programs the School Readiness team provide include:

• Parent information nights held online where parents are able to speak with kinder teachers, allied health professionals and experts at the Department of Education to find out how they can best help their child get ready for the transition to school.
• Safe and supportive playgroups for vulnerable families, which connects them to community, to services and provides a safe place for children to play who may be impacted by family violence or other circumstances that make them vulnerable
• Training and professional development sessions for kindergarten and early childhood educators so that they can up-skill and access tools and resources to assist children in their classroom.

The program headed by Occupational Therapist and Team Leader Danili Dwyer has achieved impressive results including increased educator and parent confidence, a rise in referrals to allied health services, meaning that children are able to access more timely and specific services therefore improving health outcomes for young children.

When asked about the importance of the program, School Readiness Team Leader Danilli Dwyer highlighted the early years education as a crucial point of development for all children. “We know that many foundational skills for development are formed in the first 5 years of life and early identification of challenges and implementation of supports is key to helping children reach their fullest potential. Kindergarten teachers are sometimes a child’s first contact with a formal service meaning they are best placed to identify and promote the need for early intervention. Our team feels privileged to be able to work collaboratively with the kindergarten staff to ensure all children have equal access to the support they need across all developmental areas”.

The awards were presented by the Victorian Minister for Health and the Chief Medical Officer at an event at the Glass House at Olympic Park, with each public health service in the state including the Royal Melbourne, The Royal Childrens and the Women’s all represented and eligible to apply.

“It’s been wonderful to see our service and our teams hard work recognised. The awards themselves are an opportunity to showcase to the health industry new and innovative ways of doing things – with the hope that we can positively influence other services and share those innovations.”

“The Warrnambool and South West Community have every right to feel proud to share this award with us, as we are very much shaped by and supported by our community to constantly look at ways to do things better. Consumer feedback and community fundraising goes a long way towards helping us determine which services and programs will have the deepest impact and allows us to remain at the cutting-edge with technology,” says Fraser. “So thank you for your support.”

“It’s a proud moment for us and our team but also for Warrnambool, and with the addition of a brand new hospital tower in 2026 the future for healthcare in the region is looking bright.’