FAR WEST LOCAL HEALTH DISTRICT

The Far West Local Health District was established on 1 January 2011, and what was initially our Governing Council was established as a Board in April 2011. The Board’s vision is to achieve “Excellence in Rural and Remote Health”, which encompasses not only providing high quality clinical services, but also working with our communities to enable people to be as healthy as possible. The Far West LHD serves a population of just over 30,000 people dispersed across the second largest geographic area (194,949 square kilometres) of all the LHDs in NSW. Over 10% of the people we serve are Aboriginal. This population is relatively young and reflects the lower life expectancy of Aboriginal people. Of the total LHD population, 91.1 per cent are from an English speaking background. We share a commitment to work closely to ensure our LHD delivers consistently high quality patient care. Local leadership and decision-making drives us to develop sound governance and strategic directions for the LHD, supported by enhanced local input from clinicians and engagement with consumers and communities. This provides a solid base for ongoing development whilst meeting the needs of our communities. The LHD has nine facilities: Broken Hill, Menindee, Wentworth, Dareton, Balranald, Ivanhoe, White Cliffs, Tibooburra and Wilcannia. We hope people will become increasingly comfortable using our services and working with our teams to maintain and improve their health. A part of this is expecting everyone who works with us to: •be respectful; •provide information to our customers about their health and the care that is, or needs to be provided; and •to actively pursue improvements in the services we provide.