A new collaborative health service says it will put an emphasis on community consultation, in an effort to improve health outcomes in the remote western Queensland region.
The Western Queensland Primary Care Collaborative has been created by the hospital and health services in the central west, south-west and north-west and will take over primary health care from Medicare Local in July.
Spokesman Brett Oates said pooling state and federal funding would help with primary and acute health care issues.
He said understanding the needs of different communities would be essential in designing the service.
“Most of the communities are relatively small and without those individuals actually having a voice we are never really going to know what it is that is actually required,” he said.
“So the idea is certainly in the initial phase there will be a bit more intensity but we will be having regularly meetings, I’m not sure just how often they will be but we are talking several times a year.”
Mr Oates said it would work to improve health outcomes by improving access to GPs.
“That will be not necessarily your typical urban Monday to Friday, nine to five general practitioner but indeed will have some innovative teams where there might be a couple of general practitioners,” he said.
“They would potentially support some Indigenous health workers, some social workers and nurse practitioners and so forth in a model that is … like a multipurpose-type general practice.
“So we’ll be trying to make sure that we tailor to each community that type of service.”