Strategy 7: Good Governance

Welcome to the WQPHN 2021-2022 Annual Report Highlights. For a printable version of the report, please click here.

Provide accountable quality assured corporate, program and clinical governance to support a responsive efficient organisation, focused on improving patient and population outcomes.

Six Board meetings were held across the 2021-22 Financial Year.

Three were held via videoconference, one Longreach and two in Brisbane.


Regional Clinical Chapter Meetings have been held over 2021-22 with great attendance and very positive discussions and ideas. These Clinical Chapters are a valuable resource for Commissioned Service Providers across the respective regions and also a network that WQPHN staff members can connect with to share news or discuss emerging issues. 

The Chapters are the only multi-disciplinary networks in the region and are represented by the region's Hospital and Health Services (HHS), Allied Health, Mental Health, AOD, Nukal Murra, Aged Care, GPs and pharmacy.

This year has seen the handing of the flame to new leaders for each region – Jean Benham (South West), Cassie French (Central West) and John Cain (North West) who are eager to lead the teams.

"As an Allied Health clinician, consumer and long-term local, my focus as Chair of the South West Clinical Chapter is to support engagement to allow family, friends, work peers and staff contribute to community wellness, with an emphasis on developing equitable access to Allied Health services in health care. Representatives of the Chapter “dig deep” into how the value of the group can be grown for each organisation in their pursuit of health service for people of South West Queensland.

Clinical Chapters are such a significant opportunity to support each other in improvements towards our shared vision to ensure the viability of high-quality health care, meaning “the right care at the right time and in the right place” - Jean Benham, Vital Health, CEO

"As the Regional Coordinator for Central and Central West Queensland at CheckUP, I am actively involved in stakeholder engagement, contract management and service development across the region.

I am passionate about preventative health and early intervention, and love being involved in work that helps to increase access to health services and creates sustainable outcomes. My role at CheckUP meant I could return to the Central West (where I lived and worked for 5 years) to help contribute to improving health outcomes in these remote areas.          
I am a big believer in conversations and working together to make a difference, and the Clinical Chapter meetings are a great way to be involved in this with key stakeholders and community members.
Clinical Chapters are invaluable to facilitating discussion between service providers, with respect and fairness and focusing on priority needs of the region, resulting actions and achievable outcomes for the year." - Cassie French, CheckUP, Regional Coordinator 

"As CEO of NWRH, I took on the role of the North West Clinical Chapter Chair to support our communities and each other through the exchange of information, and to ultimately improve the overall health care opportunities for all within Western Queensland.
The Clinical Chapter(s) play an important role in advancing health intelligence and health outcomes for these Western Queensland communities.
Clinical Chapter groups are a tremendous opportunity to continue to build on the great work done to date and to advance the overall health care opportunities in Western Queensland" - John Cain, NWRH, CEO

WQPHN is participating in a new national technology initiative known as Primary Health Insights, initiated to simplify and standardise governance, systems and processes associated with data storage and analysis.

The Primary Health Insights program (locally rebranded by WQPHN as Outback Insights) will:

  • increase PHN analytical and reporting capability;
  • reduce duplication of effort;
  • simplify processes;
  • automate manual data and governance processes;
  • standardise reports where possible;
  • reduce IT costs.


A new highly secure lockbox environment has been built within the Primary Health Insights environment, with WQPHN retaining full custodianship of data. The onboarding process involved a comprehensive assessment and audit of WQPHN’s data governance and privacy measures, to ensure the organisation is operating at a suitable maturity level to join Primary Health Insights. WQPHN successfully completed the onboarding audit and our team was commended for the high quality of our policies, procedures and systems in place to maintain data privacy and cyber security.

The Outback Insights project aims to improve the use of data to enable WQPHN to meet objectives around improving population health outcomes.


Our Stories...

headspace Roma 1st birthday

headspace Roma celebrated their first birthday on Wednesday May 4, 2022, with local crew and staff enjoying the celebrations, which included a great BBQ, cake, art workshops, games and a chill out zone.


Nukal Murra Virtual Home Monitoring

Chronic diseases are long-lasting, and while most are preventable and treatable, they cause approximately 64% of the disease burden among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and approximately 80% of the mortality gap.


COVID-19 and Aged Care

The steady achievers in 2021/22 have once again been the committed staff working in residential and community aged care.


Telehealth and Digital Health

Nearly 23 per cent of homes in Western Queensland have no access to the internet - we need to invest in the digital infrastructure to support access to telehealth, online supports, and community, aged care and disability services.


Healthy Ageing Aged Care Roadshow

WQPHN collaborated with Mable to visit regional communities throughout Western Queensland to discuss options for community-led aged care services and provide workforce solutions for rural and remote areas.


​WiSE Mental Health & Telehealth

WQPHN has commissioned headspace National to provide the Wellbeing in Schools Early Intervention Telepsychiatry program (WiSE).