Engagement and Collaboration
The Office of Rural and Remote Health is committed to ongoing engagement with our internal and external stakeholders. To facilitate this, we have established committees and networks comprising our key partners and stakeholders to ensure we are an informed voice for rural and remote communities, and to facilitate ongoing collaboration. Information on our engagement and relevant contacts are below:
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The Rural and Remote Advisory for Community, Strategy and OperatioNs (RRACSON) will provide a multidisciplinary and multiagency perspective on rural and remote issues. For the purposes of the RRACSON, rural and remote communities of Queensland are those encompassed by Modified Monash Categories 4 to 7 (large rural towns to very remote). The committee will:
- Advise the ORRH around the needs, issues, challenges, and opportunities associated with delivery of health care in rural and remote communities.
- Advise on the implementation of the Rural and Remote Health and Wellbeing Strategy and other system-level strategies.
- Provide an advisory body for DoH consultation and input
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The Rural and Remote Service Leads Committee is a Queensland Health Stakeholder Engagement groups that provides an opportunity for:
- ORRH to provide an update on current projects/tools that may assist health workers in a rural and remote context
- Facilitate a ‘Community of Practice’ between rural and remote leads to share:
- Innovations
- Current projects
- Successful projects that can be replicated or scaled up
- Feedback back to ORRH on behalf of the system manager around:
- Pressure points and opportunities for improvement
- System-level change and advocacy
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The Rural and Remote Nursing and Midwifery Education Leads working group was developed to collaborate and ensure the provision of standardised, innovative and sustainable education and training for rural and remote health professionals in Queensland. The group will:
- Identify education and training opportunities for statewide standardisation
- Identify barriers and enablers
- Participate in development of education and training
- Review and provide recommendations on education and training resources.
- Identify issues and risks related to education and training
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The responsibilities of the FORCE include:
- Informing and progressing the implementation of the Project recommendations.
- Facilitating a shared approach to rural and remote medical workforce data collection, analysis, and planning.
- Defining the required future pipeline with medical schools and medical specialist colleges.
- Enabling the alignment of Queensland and Commonwealth programs which aim to maximise workforce distribution.
- Developing objectives, timeframes, key performance indicators for education, training, and professional support.
- Developing a framework to proactively identify at risk communities.
- Enabling and supporting integrated place-based workforce planning which is responsive to community health needs.
- Collaborating with key partners and stakeholders to influence and inform workforce strategies, models of care, funding approaches, service integration and capital improvements which optimise access to comprehensive primary health care.
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The Rural and Remote Medical Administrators Network was established to provide a network for the Hospital and Health Services (HHSs) across Queensland who manage and administrate medical employment across MMM4-7 facilities within their HHS. Issues for discussion include:
- Employment frameworks
- Industrial relationsSystems and processes for resident medical officers (RMOs), senior medical officers (SMOs), visiting medical officers (VMOs) and locum medical officers (locums) specific to rural and remote settings.
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The Hospital-Based Ambulance Network (the HBA Network) was established to provide a network for HHS facilities operating under this environment.
The Network is to provide a forum that supports HBAs through:
- HBA’s to implement the SLAs in a more consistent approach.
- HHSs and QAS to share and collaborate ideas and innovations
- Build collegial and supportive relationships between HBAs and QAS
- An avenue for targeted engagement by others on matters relating to HBAs