Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network
Planning for equitable healthcare through lived experience and evidence.
Everyone deserves access to safe, inclusive, and responsive healthcare. This project set out to understand and address the health needs of two of Eastern Melbourne’s most vulnerable groups — people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, and people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
Working with Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network (EMPHN) and Larter Consulting, we delivered two detailed Health Needs Assessments across a region of more than 1.6 million people, spanning 12 local government areas from Melbourne’s inner east to the Yarra Ranges and parts of Mitchell.
Across this diverse region, many people continue to face barriers to care — from cost and transport challenges to stigma, discrimination, and a lack of culturally safe services. Our assessments explored how these barriers intersect with broader social factors, including housing, income, language access, and community connections.
To build a clear and actionable evidence base, we:
- Analysed national and regional datasets (ABS, AIHW, GP, hospital, emergency, and mental health data) to identify service gaps and health needs.
- Combined this data with insights from people with lived experience, ensuring community voices shaped the findings.
- Presented results in multiple formats, from detailed reports for policy and planning to maps and visuals for public communication.
- Developed an interactive tool for EMPHN to identify spatial gaps in GP services by language spoken.
This work demonstrates how data and lived experience can come together to inform compassionate, equitable, and trauma-informed health planning — setting a benchmark for best practice across the sector.
This project was nominated for planning excellence at the 2025 PIA VIC Awards.
