Commissioning Services to Improve Childhood Immunisation Rates within the SEMPHN Catchment

⁠⁠⁠South Eastern Melbourne (SEMPHN) is seeking proposals from interested organisations or persons to improve childhood immunisation rates, particularly within identified 'hotspots' in the SEMPHN catchment. Projects are expected to commence on Monday, 3rd April 2017.

Commissioning services to improve childhood immunisation rates within the south eastern Melbourne region.

Within this project, childhood immunisation refers to children within the age groups of: 12 to less than 15 months old, 24 to less than 27 months old, and 60 to less than 63 months old, who are not fully immunised.

SEMPHN has identified areas that are 'hotpsots', which are characterised by communities or practices with low rates of immunisation, or high numbers of children not fully immunised. The following municipalities were identified as hotspot areas within the SEMPHN catchment: Casey, Dandenong, Port Phillip and Stonnington.

Submissions from interested applicants must propose an activity, or a range of activities, that:

* focus on one or more SEMPHN hotspot areas (whether across regions or the entire SEMPHN catchment); and are provider-based interventions, such as education for health providers, recall/reminder systems and/or catch ups.

Organisations/persons must also include within their proposal the ability to:

* attend network meetings with immunisation providers as directed by SEMPHN and
* regularly review the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) and provide data to update SEMPHN's immunisation webpage, in consultation with relevant SEMPHN staff.

Proposals may also include patient-orientated interventions (e.g. community education or incentives) and/or system-orientated interventions (e.g. home visits) to address local barriers or challenges, which will also be rated highly by the Assessment Panel.

Proposed activities can involve the expansion or replication of existing services in identified hotspot areas, or an enhancement of existing services to increase capacity and meet demand.

The total funding available for this service is $240,000 (GST exclusive). SEMPHN may award funding to one or more applicants, depending on the quality and funding requests of the submissions.

Successful applicants will be required to commence on 3rd April 2017 and the Funding Agreement will conclude on 30th June 2018.