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Wairarapa MP Georgina Beyer is thrilled that Wairarapa Primary Health Nurses Group has been selected as one of 11 innovative nursing initiatives to receive a share of $7.1 million in funding.
The successful initiatives, announced today by Health Minister Annette King, are all examples of how primary health care nurses can collaborate and work more effectively to address community health needs in areas like child, youth, mental, Māori and Pacific health.
The $7.1 million Primary Health Care Nursing Innovations Fund is part of $400 million of new money to begin implementing the Primary Health Care Strategy over the next three years.
Welcoming today's funding announcement, Georgina Beyer said the fund was an investment in nursing through the Wairarapa District Health Board, and would make better use of nurses in the community.
"It also recognises nurses out in the sector as individuals who know and understand the complexity and dynamics of the population and the future direction of nursing services."
The purpose of the service is to address access difficulties in Wairarapa's rural communities by providing mobile nursing clinics to remote locations. It will decrease fragmentation within the primary health care nurses in the region to improve public access to primary healthcare services in the Wairarapa.
Georgina Beyer said the concept was valuable, as many families in lower socio economic groups in the region have transport difficulties that become a barrier to accessing the full range of health service workers available.
"The aim of this primary health nurses group is to reduce access barriers to primary health care and therefore reduce avoidable hospital admission rates, " she said. "This can be achieved with free initial client contact to a range of integrated, culturally appropriate primary health nursing services that provide clinical assessment, screening, support and education through mobile nursing clinics."
The group will also hold monthly meetings with a nursing representative from a wide range of nursing services, offering nurses currently working in isolation the opportunity to link to other primary healthcare providers.
For more information, contact Helen Pocknall, Wairarapa DHB, 06 946 9885.
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