12 June 2008

More Paediatric Networking Services for Eastern and Southern NSW

NSW Minister for Health Reba Meagher today announced the allocation of more than $900,000 to expand paediatric networking services in southern and eastern parts of the state.

"Child Health Networks were established in 2001 to improve children's health services across NSW," Ms Meagher said.

"The Networks ensure that children can receive the health care they need, as close to home as possible, whenever it is safe to offer it.

"The Networks divide the state into three areas and incorporate metropolitan and rural partners linking up with one of the state's three children's hospitals."

The Networks are:

• Greater Eastern and Southern Child Health Network - affiliated with Sydney Children's Hospital
• Northern Child Health Network - affiliated with John Hunter Children's Hospital
• Western Child Health Network - affiliated with The Children's Hospital at Westmead.

"The funding I am committing today will offer clinicians in southern and eastern NSW the opportunity to develop or pilot projects for children and their families to improve their health care experience and establish services as close to home as possible," Ms Meagher said.

Amongst a range of projects, the following initiatives have been funded in the Greater Eastern and Southern Child Health Network:

Speech Pathology Services for Aboriginal Preschool Children ($25,000) - This project will be piloted in La Perouse and aims to test models for the delivery of speech pathology services for Aboriginal children.

"A model where families 'drop-in' will be compared to the conventional 'pre-booked' service delivery model," Ms Meagher said.

"The pilot hopes to find ways to improve accessibility to services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged 0-15 years."

Teenage Aboriginal Parents Program ($50,350) - This program will also be piloted in La Perouse and aims to support and empower young Aboriginal parents aged under 18 to complete their schooling.

The program will specifically target teenage Aboriginal mothers who left school because of their pregnancy, but will be open to fathers also.

Aboriginal Young Mothers Sustained Home Visiting Project ($137,760) - This project will be piloted in Wagga Wagga and aims to improve the health, development and wellbeing of young Aboriginal mothers and their infants through a comprehensive sustained home visiting program.

"This project will build on the already successful Aboriginal Maternal Infant Health Strategy by adding a specialist Child and Family Health Nurse to the midwife and Aboriginal Health Worker team," Ms Meagher said.

Paediatric and Child Health Education for Aboriginal Health Workers ($97,662) - This project will also be tested in Wagga Wagga and aims to increase the education available to Aboriginal Health Workers about common paediatric and child health conditions.

This project aims to enhance the services currently provided by the Aboriginal Medical Services to enable Aboriginal Health Workers to identify potential health problems and promote early referral.

"Paediatric networking extends beyond just linkages between hospitals and includes GPs, private paediatricians and allied health service providers, community health and primary care services, early childhood services and other government and non government agencies with a responsibility for children's health and welfare," Ms Meagher said.

"Already the Networks have rolled out clinical practice guidelines for common conditions presenting to hospitals which means that children from Broken Hill to Bondi can expect the same treatment and standard of care.

"These projects offer our health and community services the chance to further improve models of care for children across the state."

For a range of health information, go online to www.health.nsw.gov.au