Supporting Primary Health Care Providers in Western Sydney Areas of Socio-Economic Disadvantage

General Practitioners working with socially disadvantaged populations face challenges in trying to solve complex health issues and social problems, often in time pressured visits. Western Sydney includes some of the most disadvantaged postcodes in Australia and has some of the highest rates of disease prevalence as well as lowest GP to population ratios. This project is describing the needs of primary health care providers (PHCPs) in these areas, to develop a support model and to evaluate early implementation of this model in order to inform funding bids for ongoing research and support. The longer term aim is to build sustainability of the primary care workforce in order to improve health outcomes and inform the Australian health reform agenda particularly regarding workforce shortages in outer urban disadvantaged areas. The research agreements were executed in October 2014 and the first project report has been received. A second project report is due in July 2015 with the project ending in March 2016.