General News
8 May, 2026
Strong focus for Camperdown
CAMPERDOWN is set to be a major focus in the next five years after South West Healthcare (SWH) outlined a plan for delivering care closer to home, strengthening the regional workforce and building a more connected health system in its recently-launched Strategic Plan 2026-2030.
The plan, launched on Monday, responds to the growing demand for healthcare services and changing community needs across SWH’s campuses which include Camperdown and Lismore.
It focuses on improving access to specialist care, expanding services delivered locally and ensuring the health service remains sustainable into the future.
The strategy was shaped through extensive consultation with staff, consumers, partners and the broader community including 299 staff survey responses, 107 community responses and 155 participants across 24 consultation sessions.
Chief executive officer Craig Fraser said the plan reflects what the community has been clear about – timely access to care, strong local services and a workforce which is supported to deliver safe, high-quality care, providing great experiences with the community.
“This plan sets an ambitious but practical direction for the next five years,” he said.
“It focuses on the things that matter most to our community – shorter wait times, better access to specialist services, connecting our healthcare landscape and care that is delivered closer to home wherever possible.”
The Strategic Plan has been built around four priorities which will guide decision-making and investment across the organisation – delivering outstanding care, fostering excellence together, partnering for impact and shaping the future.
Mr Fraser said while the plan’s scope covers the six SWH campuses across south west Victoria, there was a big focus in Camperdown.
“It’s built on what we’ve already done at Camperdown over the last five to 10 years, which is really improving and increasing the services,” he said.
“Over the last few years, we’ve built the brand-new aged care facility – which is fantastic – increased the number of theatres in Camperdown, changed the urgent care model and the general practitioners (GPs) are critical to the services there so we’ve been trying to support the GPs in how we do that.
“The maternity service is at five days at the moment, and we’re exploring how we can get that back to seven days a week.
“It’s also looking at the broader Camperdown services – we have a fully-staffed mental health team in Camperdown, which is amazing, and they’re providing critical services all across the Corangamite region, so we want to look at how we put them in a better facility while also keeping that access going for the Corangamite area.
“More broadly, we also have Manifold Place, which provides a lot of allied health services – all of the allied health services we want to keep and consolidate, but also expand those services over time.”
Mr Fraser said there were plans to maintain and improve the David Newman Centre as well, with plans to expand services into Lismore.
“I also want to mention that Lismore is a key component of our whole plan as well – making sure that we keep services in the Lismore community and, where we can, expand those and improve things like access to GPs, allied health services and others over time,” he said.
“What it means into the future is that we’d love to continue to expand the model – already we’ve started a specialist renal clinic in Camperdown.
“We’re looking at how we expand other models into Camperdown so that people, whilst they won’t necessarily be able to be admitted at certain times in Camperdown, when they return from admission, prior to admission or even while they’re in the community, they don’t have to travel into Warrnambool or other places as much because we’ll provide more care closer to people in Camperdown itself.
“We love our aged care facility in Camperdown but, for us, we’ve always had a bit of a plan and a bit of a journey around lifting the accommodation we have to a better level of accommodation at the acute facility particularly, but also for community health, mental health and making it a more integrated model.”
The plan includes a number of practical initiatives designed to improve access to care and strengthen regional services.
These include developing regional specialist service hubs in areas such as cardiology, mental health, oncology, orthopaedics, renal and intensive care, expanding virtual care, outreach and hospital-at-home services to support patients in their own communities and improving referral and navigation systems so patients and clinicians can more easily access the right services.
Other initiatives include building service models tailored to the needs of diverse communities, strengthening recruitment, retention and succession planning to support a strong and sustainable workforce, investing in modern facilities, equipment and digital technology to support safe and efficient care and embedding the safe and ethical use of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies to support clinical decision-making and service delivery.
Mr Fraser said the launch of the plan had been “really exciting”.
“We’re on a bit of a journey to have a really strong, smaller rural health service in Camperdown, and I think we’ve proved over the last five or so years we’re really keen to invest but also make it quite an innovative model,” he said.
“We are looking at Camperdown as an exciting showpiece of how we can improve and make it a really vibrant facility in a town the size of Camperdown but also in a region the size of Corangamite.
“Our GPs are critical to that, so they’ve been really driving a lot of this for many years and they are a key component to actually feeding into that.”
Another important focus is advocacy for the region and for rural healthcare generally.
“We need to challenge the preconceptions that people have about rural healthcare,” Mr Fraser said.
“A great example of that is through our clinical trials team more people are getting onto research driven trials that are often reserved for metropolitan people who can travel.
“Creating a space for regional patients to be involved in trials and to lend their unique perspective to the development of medicines and models of care means that rural patients aren’t left behind.
“We need to close the gap and ensure that rural patients can expect the same positive outcomes as those living in urban centres.
“We will continue to champion regional and rural voices in healthcare.”
Board chair Allison Patchett said the strategy positioned SWH to meet increasing demand while maintaining a focus on safety, quality and sustainability.
“Our community expects safe, reliable and compassionate care,” she said.
“This plan provides a clear path forward and ensures we continue to strengthen services for our region now and in the future.
“Many people think of South West Healthcare as the Warrnambool Base Hospital or the Camperdown Hospital – but we’re not.
“We are a fully-fledged health service with mental health facilities, community and allied health services, residential aged care and a GP clinic.
“SWH is growing to meet the needs of our community.”
Mr Fraser said he was grateful to staff all across the SWH network for the work they do every day.
“We see Camperdown as a core – it is a key component and just as important as any other campus, including Warrnambool, so we are getting more and more people to work and travel to and from Camperdown and therefore improving and lifting the quality of service that is there,” he said.
“Our staff in Camperdown also do a remarkable job and they are a key component of the plan.
“Whilst the plan generally calls out our workforce, our teams in Camperdown do a remarkable job and we want to continue to improve and expand the workforce but also train, educate and get them working to the top of their clinical practice as well – which most of them do exceptionally well already.
“Looking back, it’s also gratifying to see how far we’ve come and some of the amazing things we’ve achieved in the last five years.”
Implementation of the Strategic Plan is already underway, with progress to be monitored and reported regularly to staff, partners and the community.
Read More: Camperdown