Co-design is a powerful approach to creating solutions that meet the needs of all stakeholders. below is a summary of the three essential elements for effective co-design: commitment, capability, and capital. Let’s go into more detail.

Impact will join up individuals working in the health, social and not-for-profit sectors to learn, connect and seek advice from each other. We envisage that the group will regularly bring together a collective of like-minded people who share a vision of a more impactful social purpose sector.

Using an equity based model, commissioners could better allocate resources and expectations around equitable delivery of services with their commissioned providers, monitor performance and demonstrate equitable use of resources.

Primary Health Networks exist to streamline health services, particularly for those at risk of poor health outcomes and to better coordinate care so people receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time. Given this, there is a great deal to learn from each other about how community members who are socioeconomically disadvantaged access, navigate and experience the health system.

In part two, we’re moving on and sharing some insights from two recently completed co-design projects our team has undertaken into two separate health system areas where consistent themes on health and financial exclusion have emerged

Moving from a position of mobilising general support for the concepts towards the uptake and implementation of social prescribing elements is the challenge. There are significant opportunities to enhance the uptake of social prescribing in local communities and health systems right across Australia, with PHNs having a particularly profound opportunity to lead the charge. 

In considering what ‘good’ looks like in the context of social prescribing, we should start with why it’s not already happening. It seems logical to focus on a person’s health and social needs and from the work we’ve done with consumers and health professionals, there is shared recognition of the importance and need for something like social prescribing. 

With the continued focus on social prescribing as a ‘high-value, low-cost’ way of improving the responsiveness of the health system, we thought it would be worthwhile to unpack some of what we learnt in that project to share with other PHNs commissioning social prescribing service models or linkage program providers. This blog is the first of three in a South Eastern NSW case study series: what is social prescribing?

Through the experiences and insights shared with us during a project to strengthen the responsiveness of health service to the mental health literacy needs of the community, we thought there was value in unpacking what mental health literacy is, exploring how it can be built in communities, and discussing the role of health services.