Capital Health Network’s (CHN) annual Needs Assessment found that around 52.3% of adults in the ACT have a chronic health condition and that social determinants greatly impact health and social service accessibility in the region.
As a first in Australia to address some of these challenges, Capital Health Network, ACT’s Primary Health Network funded 4 general practices in the ACT to trial embedding Social Workers in General Practice (SWiGP). All Social Workers worked within their current scope of practice as outlined by the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW).
The pilot aimed to harness the capabilities of the Social Workers to:
- meet the psychosocial needs of the patients
- enhance the general practice team
- increase accessibility to available services by helping the patient to “open the door” to the services e.g. Government, counselling.
