Message from the Chair

Message from the Chair

I am pleased to provide the Gippsland community with Gippsland PHN’s 2019/20 Annual Report, highlighting the many achievements and our progress made in pursuit of our vision of a measurably healthier Gippsland.

The focus of the Gippsland PHN this year has been to strive for clarity in an environment of complexity and ambiguity. It has held us in good stead as we faced an ever increasingly volatile and uncertain world. Through drought, bushfire and pandemic - we have experienced the accumulative impact of disasters. It has been our lived experience, our shared burden and our opportunity; our opportunity to respond, recover and thrive with resilience and hope for a future that drives us toward better health and wellbeing for Gippsland.

The Board’s renewed Strategic Plan 2019- 2023 established clear strategic objectives for the organisation to achieve and importantly, provided clear direction for our organisation in what has become an increasingly changing, challenging and confronting environment.

We believe that the Gippsland PHN has firmly positioned itself as an authoritative, credible source of information, a vehicle for collaboration and strong advocacy, essential for local decision making and capability building. We will continue to build on this and be agile, adaptive and bold within our role.

The pivotal role of primary care and the PHN has been clearly demonstrated this year, supporting community through drought, bushfires and pandemic with the realisation that impact, support, healthcare, mental health and wellbeing happen predominantly within community, within families, within friends and within primary care and general practice.

I acknowledge the passionate and innovative leadership of our executive and our PHN team. They have embraced the work required to achieve demonstrable impacts in the health and wellbeing for our muchloved communities of Gippsland.

Therese Tierney, Chair, Gippsland PHN