Collaboration cements increased community care

Access Health and Community (AccessHC) and healthAbility have entered a ‘Connect 4 Health’ alliance agreement to cement our long-standing collaborative relationship.

The communities we each serve will now have even greater access to health and community support services. 

Many of our teams have worked closely together for a number of years, especially in the mental health, alcohol and other drug treatment and prevention space.  

In responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are working even closer to manage positive COVID-19 cases in the community, support people in shared, public and social housing to stay COVIDSafe and connect marginalised and vulnerable community members to health and social support services including COVID-19 vaccination. 

In just a 7-day period of working with healthAbility, to keep people in public and social housing COVIDSafe and connected to support, our teams:  

• knocked on more than 1015 doors   
• handed out 1210 fitted face masks  
• delivered 724 bottles of hand sanitiser 
• supported 605 residents with information about COVID testing, vaccination, and exposure sites close to their homes. 

What’s more, when a public housing resident couldn’t get to a COVID testing site safely, the team arranged for nurses to visit and test them at home. Our team even made sure the resident had enough food for their cat so they could safely self-isolate until their test result was returned.  

The Alliance Agreement formalises this strong mutually beneficial partnership.  

We look forward to continuing to leverage the services and expertise of both organisations to reach even more people in the community and create better health outcomes for all.