10 Year Impact Series: 2018-19 Population Health Highlights
Home / News & Opportunities / Latest news / Current post
October 29, 2025
2018-19 was a stand-out year for South Eastern Melbourne Primary Health network (SEMPHN), with practical ideas delivering important ways to help our community across south east Melbourne live healthier lives.
Some of these ideas included:
- Early detection: a mobile clinic brought breast screening to 1,000 women who might otherwise have missed out.
- Immunisation push: more than 1,500 free flu and whooping cough vaccines reached people at highest risk.
- Community coverage: Greater Dandenong recorded 95.77% herd immunity for children aged 12-15 months.
- Smarter after-hours care: one program averted more than 10,000 hospital admissions, saving $5.5 million, representing a 353% return on investment (ROI).
- A second after-hours project prevented 12,000 emergency department visits, saving $6.2 million – a 379% ROI.
- Cultural safety: 60 health professionals completed training accredited by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners to strengthen care for First Nations people.
These results show how targeted investment, frontline partnerships and data-driven planning turn resources into measurable impact.
Latest news
From 28 October 2026, rubella and congenital rubella will change from being ‘routine’ to ‘urgent’ notifiable conditions in Victoria under the Public Health and Wellbeing Regulations 2019.
South Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network (SEMPHN) is providing advance notice of an upcoming open tender opportunity to establish and deliver two new Medicare Mental Health Centres in Cranbourne and Glen Iris.
Mornington Peninsula-based practice Fernbank has become the first non-traditional general practice in south east Melbourne to achieve accreditation – an important milestone for a two-person practice delivering care entirely within residential aged care homes.
