Published on 28 June 2023

Mental Health comes to Western

As of this Saturday 1 July, Western Health will become a designated Mental Health Service as a number of mental health services previously run by NorthWestern Mental Health and some of the Mercy Health services to our catchment will be officially part of Western Health.

A total of 671 staff spread across 16 mental health services will join Western Health on Saturday, taking our staff numbers to 12,000.

A new Mental Health and Wellbeing Services Division will commence operations, led by General Manager, Paula Stephenson, with Jolene Geh as Divisional Director, Dr Naveen Thomas as Clinical Services Director and Ryan Dube as Director of Nursing.

Behind the scenes, the Mental Health Transition and Integration team have been working hard to ensure the transition of staff and services to Western Health is as seamless as possible with:

  • Manager’s orientation sessions
  • Digital Health and Digital Technology Services Transition Champion sessions
  • Staff Pulse Survey
  • Staff Forums, taking place throughout the month of June.

Welcome packs will be handed out, and welcome morning teas will be held over the next week to celebrate these new Western Health staff.

New Custodial Health team in place

Western Health will also begin to provide primary health care at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre from this Saturday July 1st 2023.

They’ll be working at Victoria’s only maximum-security women’s prison, located in Ravenhall.

A team of more than 80 staff are involved in delivering this new service. Among them are General Practitioners, registered and enrolled nurses, Aboriginal liaison officers and allied health professionals.

The care to be offered at DPFC will include a 24-hour nursing service, on-call medical service, and integrated care planning. There will also be a focus on preventive healthcare, such as immunisation and mammogram services.

Specific tailored care for priority groups including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’s is also a key focus of the service.

Our team has already been in place shadowing the current health provider at the prison to be fully prepared for the handover at midnight on Friday.

Occupational Violence and Aggression conference

You may have seen an article in the Sunday Age last weekend about how our workplace violence training is making a difference for those of you working in our emergency departments and wards.

We are sharing how Western Health has achieved a significant change in the incidence of these events.

Our conference to be held on Tuesday July 11 is particularly aimed at leaders who can influence and implement programs into their health service, with a view to driving sector-wide change in managing workplace violence.

The conference intends to go well beyond the basics, diving deep into our Predict, Prevent, Priority, Safety program which has resulted in a 59 per cent reduction in staff time off due to occupational violence and aggression It will offer access to a suite of resources from the program including online training modules and digital campaign materials.

We are aiming to encourage a paradigm shift in our understanding and management of workplace violence and aggression, and we believe it’s crucial for our healthcare leaders to be well-informed and well equipped to tackle workplace violence.

Pleasingly registrations for the conference have come from colleagues in many other metropolitan and regional health services.

Accreditation is coming – but we’ll have 24 hours notice

Accreditation for all Australian health services will now be a short-notice assessment rather than a scheduled event.

For us this means any time from 1 July 2023 to 31 December 2023 just 24 hours’ notice will be given before surveyors will be on site for a week of survey.

This weekend marks the beginning of this milestone for Western Health and the opportunity for short-notice assessment to occur with 24 hours’ notice at any time.

When the short notice is received, staff will be notified in a number of ways, but please keep to the front of mind that Best Care is everyone’s business at Western Health. Everyone in every part of Western Health has a role to play.

Resources to remain prepared for NSQHS Standards Accreditation can be found on the live Best Care site:

Are you ready for NSQHS Accreditation? – Live Best Care (wh.org.au)