Our awards
Our annual Western NSW Local Health District Awards are a highlight of the year for the District.
The Awards program brings health care professionals together, to share and celebrate achievements in innovation and delivering world-class health care to our communities. The program includes a symposium during the day and a presentation event in the evening.
The 2026 award program was held in Dubbo in August.
Sponsorship opportunities
Opportunities to partner with us for the 2026 Symposium and Awards have now closed.
If you would like to know more about partnering with us for this special event in future years, please email us for more information.
2026 award recipients & finalists
Congratulations to our award recipients and finalists in the following categories.
The First Welcome Matters: Cultural Awareness Training for Volunteers - RECIPIENT
First Welcome Matters addressed an important gap in the orientation program for volunteers – the absence of cultural awareness training.
In many cases, a volunteer – in a hospital or in the community – will be the first, or an important, point of connection. To help ensure volunteers have skills and knowledge that helps make the experience of Aboriginal culturally safe, resources were developed, piloted and delivered to more than 60 volunteers, with positive feedback.
The program has been developed in collaboration with our Aboriginal Health staff, community members and the material is localised, reflecting the diverse nations in our District.
Yarning for Change: Improving Cancer Care with Aboriginal Men in Western NSW
While disparities in Aboriginal cancer outcomes are well documented, limited research has explored the lived experiences of Aboriginal men receiving radiation therapy, particularly in regional settings.
This project shifted the focus from describing inequity, to listening to Aboriginal voices and identifying practical, locally relevant solutions including improving culturally appropriate communication, stronger engagement with Aboriginal Health Workers, increased awareness of support services, and the development of Aboriginal- specific cancer education resources.
All of these are low-cost improvements, expressed through lived experience that can help improvement engagement, patient experience and access to radiation therapy services.
Aboriginal Family Wellbeing: Violence Prevention Transforming Aboriginal Outcomes
Working in partnership with the Department of Communities & Justice and Aboriginal Child and Family Centres in Lightning Ridge and Brewarrina, this project embeds Aboriginal Family Wellbeing and Violence Prevention roles within already trusted, local systems.
Independent evaluation and user and stakeholder feedback emphasises the importance of cultural connection when engaging with families experiencing domestic, family and sexual violence.
The program respects Aboriginal knowledge and lived experience and offers access to critical services in a place where connection and trust exists and continues to grow.
Bathurst Ambulatory Care: Green Wards
Softening our District’s environmental footprint doesn’t always demand heroic effort.
Green Wards is focused on supporting individual teams to identify and act on small, achievable actions such as avoiding over-ordering, reducing waste, recycling and waste-segregation.
Sustainability Champions have helped with engagement, and capability and confidence building that will help embed an eye to sustainability in practical and visible actions.
In small and large health settings, Green Wards is contributing in meaningful ways to our District’s Environmental Sustainability Strategy.
One Million Pieces - RECIPIENT
In partnership with the Clinical Procurement team, One Million Pieces has systematically reviewed commonly used clinical and non-clinical items, audited high-volume products and investigated options to avoid and reduce waste, including single-use plastics.
After trials at a range of sites, changes are now being translated into business-as-usual with more than one million pieces of single-use plastic already removed from landfill.
With no impact on patient safety, One Million Pieces demonstrates how practical changes, delivered at scale, can make a truly meaningful environmental impact.
Dancing Towards Healthy Ageing Across Western NSW - RECIPIENT
With a 25 per cent increase in the number of people aged over 65 expected by 2036, keeping people healthy, and on their feet, for longer is a key aspiration for our District.
Looking for a program that supports physical activity, mobility and balance, while also benefiting social wellbeing that was also low-cost and scalable it’s unsurprising that dance emerged as a great option.
Dance Health Alliance Australia’s well-tested and validated DanceMoves and DanceWise programs have now been implemented across 19 locations, with more than 380 people participating. There’s now even a wait list of more than 100 people.
Healthy Warrumbungles
Healthy Warrumbungles is a placed-base endeavour that has partnered five organisations along with local communities in a co-design process that put the community itself in the driver’s seat.
The priorities determined by the community have been translated into meaningful actions such as a community health day with free skin checks and diabetes screening, the establishment of a youth forum, and four women’s health events.
More than just building services, the project builds trust and provides an opportunity for practical interventions supported and lead by the community.
Operation Vaccination
Accessing adult vaccines is one of the most effective ways of protecting communities, particularly those which are vulnerable by virtue of their location. Access to ad-hoc clinics and primary care, the cost of some vaccines, and, in some cases ‘vaccine hesitancy’, serve as barriers to that access.
Operation Vaccination approaches adult vaccination in a whole new way, by supporting local teams and partner organisations to up-skill providers to deliver local clinics with known and trusted healthcare providers on hand to facilitate access.
Physical Health in Mental Health
The physical health aspects of care for consumers prescribed high-risk psychotropic medication can sometimes be seen as secondary to mental health needs. But not only are these health facets linked, they are central to providing person-centred care.
This program brought together a multidisciplinary team to identify physical health risks and provide timely interventions to help prevent hospital admission, and to improve long-term health outcomes.
Partnerships between care providers, including primary care, and consumers along with their family and carer network have driven permanent changes including clear referral pathways for a range of services, as well as health assessment, education and monitoring.
Bloomfield Hospital Music Therapy Program
Music therapy is recognised as helping to reduce the impact and improve the wellbeing of people with serious mental illness.
The pilot Music Therapy program introduced at Bloomfield Hospital included 10 group and 40 individual sessions as an adjunct to consumer’s multidisciplinary care.
Participants reported improved mood, reduced stress, greater coping resources, and increased interpersonal connection following sessions.
Music therapy has now been successfully transferred into adult acute services and with older people.
MHDA Art Pilot
Art therapy is an established, evidence-based therapeutic intervention for trauma and for supporting continuing recovery.
Working with a contracted art therapist, this program, piloted for 6 months but extended to nine due to demand, included 83 participants ranging in age from mid-teens to 80+.
Art therapy offers a range of benefits for consumers, building on the trust and rapport developed with their multidisciplinary care team, and potentially improving reception for existing and additional therapeutic options.
Virtual Psychiatry Hub - RECIPIENT
The Virtual Psychiatry Hub is a transformative service providing specialist psychiatric support to emergency departments across NSW.
The Hub has received more than 18,000 referrals from clinicians in Eds seeking advice to support clinical decision making, reduce waiting times, and improve patient experience.
A sustainable, well-governed, clinician-led model, the Hub utilises technology to capitalise on available expertise and provide specialised support to clinicians and their patients, regardless of their location.
Listening Beyond the Vitals: Person-centred Care in the ED - RECIPIENT
Between April 2025 and March 2026, 150 emergency department patients aged 70 and over competed a Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) assessment through the Aged Service Emergency Team.
Beyond their presenting complaint, the assessment identifies concerns with a range of issues such as physical function, pain, sleep and social support and was used as the basis for shared decision-making, the development of personalised care plans, discharge planning and timely referral.
While this is likely the first time that PROMIS has been used in an NSW ED setting, the results are promising, with a vastly reduced ED re-presentation rate within 48 hours for those who completed the assessment.
Replacing the Elective Joint Physiotherapy Pathway
People undertaking elective joint replacement surgery need often need physiotherapy both before and after their operation – placing an enormous demand on those services.
This project aimed to evolve the traditional service model of one-on-one appointments an instead deliver purpose-designed classes for groups of people preparing for, or recovering from, their surgery.
In collaboration with the Dubbo Chronic Care and Walanmarra services, suitable class spaces were secured, including the use of hydrotherapy.
The consequent reduction in waiting times, and improvements in patient experience demonstrate the effectiveness of this important program.
Where Grief Finds Company
Experiencing loss, grief and bereavement in rural communities can be enormously challenging. While living in a smaller community can provide support, it can also make that experience very visible.
This project examined whether a facilitated bereavement support group could provide a safe space that enhanced emotional wellbeing, reduced isolation and strengthened social connection.
Evaluation shows strong satisfaction and indicates that small-scale, relationship-centred intervention may have a place in supporting rural communities.
IMS+ Reflection Tool
Improvements to patient safety can be achieved when reflective learning is applied following unexpected medical events.
The development of a standardised tool to extract information from the ims+ incident management source and apply a reflection tool focused on decision-making, human factors and system influences supports staff to identify contributing factors and implement targeted prevention strategies.
More than asking ‘how’, the tool pushes to answer ‘why’, and to ultimately put prioritise accountability and actions to help improve patient safety.
Safe Ultrasound Guided Cannulation Program - RECIPIENT
Ultrasound guided cannulation is frequently used and when Dubbo Health Service identified significant variation in technique a multidisciplinary project was established to standardise practice and improve patient safety.
Led by the DHS Emergency and Medical Administration departments, the project introduced credentialling, supervised procedural training, provided education, and established standards and processes for a range of activities related to ultrasound guided cannulation.
Ultimately, patient safety is improved through clear, comprehensive and well-supported standardised practice.
Save the Clot Day
Venous thromboembolism, or VTE, is a risk faced by hospitalised patients, and the Bathurst Health Service identified an opportunity to improve the prevention of the condition by embedding actions into routine clinical practice.
Lead by the BHS Clinical Governance and medical Services teams, the project adapted a range of existing systems and resources to identify patients who needed reassessment and intervention to reduce the VTE risk.
Taking a whole-of-ward approach, and engaging with a range of teams through “Save the Clot Day”, the program has unified staff around a patient safety objective.
A Reflective Practice Approach to Managing Clinical Performance Concerns
Learning support plans are often effective when addressing performance issues related to skill, but less so when the issue is related to decision making in a clinical environment.
This project developed a standardised Remedial Action Plan that requires staff to critically analyse their performance from the perspective of decision making and behaviour, rather than clinical skill.
It focuses on a positive safety culture and uses reflective practice as a means of strengthening wellbeing, supporting learning and patient safety, and empowering clinicians to work with their managers and peers to implement meaningful solutions.
MHDA State-wide Transition to Professional Practice
This cross-District program is designed to improve the effectiveness of transitional support for early-career clinicians working in MHDA services, in particular the commonly experienced ‘theory-to-practice’ gap.
Subject matter experts from partnering districts have contributed to practical learning activities directly linked to clinical work. With participants able to work at their own pace, and with inbuilt flexibility to respond to specific local issues, the program has enormous potential.
Implemented as part of a suite of measures to improve recruitment and retention in one mental health ICU has transformed from being one of the least, to one of the most desirable placements for new graduates.
Ways of Working: Creating Options for an Agile and Responsive Radiation Oncology Workforce - RECIPIENT
Working in Radiation Oncology is a physically and emotionally demanding role. With a focus on workforce wellbeing, the District’s Radiation Oncology service in Dubbo and Orange explored models could support staff to navigate risks such as burnout, compassion fatigue, and unplanned leave.
An opt-in Four-Day Working Week has been introduced and is a novel approach in a regional setting where workforce, demand and service continuity create unique challenges.
Along with other operational interventions to support service delivery the option has delivered substantial activity increases while reducing overtime and sick leave. Equally important – staff report improved wellbeing, morale and engagement.
Improving D-Dimer Stewardship in Rural Emergency Medicine - RECIPIENT
Pulmonary embolism is a life-threatening condition and, particularly in an emergency setting, the use of the D-Dimer blood test is frequently used to indicate if a clotting condition has, or is, occurring.
This research examined the use of D-Dimer ordering in the Dubbo Emergency Department, mapped this to NSW guidelines and considered how D-Dimer testing was used in relation to other, related diagnostic aids such as imaging, pathology and medical record data.
With a focus on rural healthcare, and methodical rigour, this research was published in the peer-reviewed Emergency Medicine Australasia in April 2026.
Intrapartum Low-grade Fever and Maternal Safety
Low-grade fever – between 37.5 and 37.9 celcius – is often treated as clinically borderline, particularly in the context of prolonged labour or epidural use.
This research set out to examine whether there may be a meaningful association between low-grade fever and maternal and neonatal outcomes.
Using observations, medical and diagnostic records, the research reviewed the care of almost 800 women, with 65 experiencing a low-grade fever.
While neonatal outcomes were not found to be significantly different, low-grade fever was associated with issues including higher levels of instrumental birth, increased antibiotic use and longer postnatal stay, suggesting that low-grade fever may warrant more systematic monitoring and action in rural maternity care.
Shhh: Understanding Noise in the ICU
Any noisy workplace can cause irritation and distraction. What if that workplace is were some of the most critical healthcare is being provided?
This research considered three Intensive Care Units in our District and found that noise – particularly overnight – frequently exceeded World Health Organisation recommendations.
As a consequence, patients described disrupted sleep and increased stress while staff identified noise as a barrier to providing optimal care.
The findings of this research provide a practical foundation for targeted practice change to help improve patient care and staff experience in our ICUs.
One-stop Model for Remote Multicultural Health - RECIPIENT
Home to people from over 30 different nations, Lightning Ridge is an extraordinary example of remote multiculturalism. With such a unique population, challenges emerge when seeking to improve engagement with health and wellness care.
Supported by Community Engagement, local and District-wide services collaborated to deliver Outreach Health Days, delivered in a central location and designed to ensure cultural safety in a familiar environment.
‘Flu vaccinations, women’s health support, mental health information, access to BreastScreen NSW, healthy eating education and service navigation were available for attendees which included many first-time recipients of ‘flu vaccination, and school students participating in healthy lifestyle and personal development sessions.
Respecting the Difference
Respecting the Difference – Be the Difference is a culturally governed and localised approach to strengthening cultural awareness and knowledge across our District.
Co-designed with Elders and communities along with Aboriginal staff, the program – which is mandatory for all staff – reflects local histories, lived experience, kinship structures and the impact of racism and trauma on wellbeing.
A significant innovation is the development of a Virtual Reality Avatar resource that places the user in immersive, culturally governed scenarios to help build more culturally welcoming and safe environments, and to reframe cultural learning as an ongoing responsibility.
Building Healthy Communities Challenge: Empowering Rural Communities, Delivering Local Change - RECIPIENT
Building Healthy Communities invites smaller towns to identify ways they can help improve health inequity through the built environment, physical activity, healthy eating, tobacco cessation, and building social connection.
More than 100 submissions have been put forward, and four communities have worked with our Health Promotion team to execute activities such as the Grenfell Food Hall, Mental Health First Aid in peak Hill, and activity and health screening programs in Manildra and Gilgandra.
CARE: Climate Adaptation and Resilience Education in Families
Climate Adaptation and Resilience Education for Families (CARE for Families) is a response to extreme temperature events that can cause severe illness and increase hospital presentations.
Rather than relying on ‘mass’ messaging, CARE enables a key audience - families with new babies - to be identified, and then incorporates informal heat risk assessments into routine child and family health nurse home visits.
Families were then provided with simple, practical information and guides, including short videos, on how to stay cool at home.
Forget-me-not: Living with Dementia
Bringing together the Hybrid Memory Clinic, Geriatric Medicine, the Dementia Awareness and Support Team and the Aged Care Outreach Service has developed an integrated pathway that provides a seamless journey from dementia assessment through to specialist care.
Unification of the services creates a ‘no wrong door’ approach that keeps the focus on the patient and their carers, regardless of where they live.
Improving Adult Lead Surveillance
Combining digital technology with surveillance and cross-sector collaborations, this project has improved the systematic collection of information on lead exposure sources, household risks and opportunities for prevention.
Routine notifications of blood lead notifications are used to issue a survey and a locally derived, rules-based algorithm uses this information to tailor follow-up actions such as risk assessment and the provision of health information.
Beyond the improvements to case management, the project has also built a more coordinated approach between the Public Health Unit, regulatory authorities, and industry stakeholders.
Patient-reported Measures: Emergency Department
Over four weeks, this program piloted the use of Patient Reported Outcome Measures in the Bathurst emergency department to identify people who may have been at risk of re-presentation.
By providing additional follow-up, the program helped discharged patients feel more supported, informed, and safe after their return home. In turn, the risk of needing to make an unplanned return to the emergency department was reduced.
During the course of the pilot, re-presentations did reduce, aiding improvements in patient flow and length of stay, but just as importantly improved the human experience by extending the care commenced in the emergency department to beyond the point of discharge.
Virtual Support: Proactive Monitoring for Safer Rural Care - RECIPIENT
Recognising and responding to patient deterioration is critical in any setting and can be made more complex in smaller sites where competing demands for clinical attention may be more acute.
Virtual Support integrates electronic medical record data with real-time monitoring to generate early warning of potential deterioration.
Monitored by Virtual Support clinicians, these early warning enable bedside teams to work with Virtual Support to escalate, assess or manage patients sooner.
Feedback from both staff and patients has been positive, with more than 225,000 alerts in 12 months, prompting almost 6,000 clinical interventions.
Alecia Marr
Alecia’s contribution to the continuous improvement of safety and quality in our District comes in many forms.
One of her key and lasting achievement is the implementation of the Safety & Quality Essentials Pathway, with almost 8,000 staff completing the Foundations level, and more than 50 separate projects initiated through the Applied program, along with the development of a large faculty of quality advisors.
Of equal importance is her supporting and motivating leadership, dedication, hard work and passion for quality improvement. This legacy serves us well now, but also into the future as our future leaders both benefit from, and take up Alecia’s work.
Ivy Moore
Ivy is an exceptional clinical dietitian whose contribution extends well beyond her clinical work.
Her successful advanced nutrition education program extends across four regional LHDs, and her gastronomy care project demonstrated system-thinking in developing local clinical champions.
Ivy is a collaborator, a mentor, a champion, a trusted clinician and a genuine role model who elevates the culture of every team she is a part of.
Ivy is consistently looking for new and better ways both to deliver care, and to engage positively with her colleagues and patients.
Ivy’s work and how she shows up is an inspiration for our dietetic and broader workforce.
Warren Williams - RECIPIENT
Warren is a key part of the transformation of cultural capability across our District, helping to embed Aboriginal ways of knowing, being and doing into our learning, reflection and practice.
Warren’s contribution to Respecting the Difference – Be the Difference is profound. He has personally delivered more than 350 cultural capability sessions which is, quite literally, changing how people think, and delivering practical ways that we can change how we act.
Warren’s work, and his outlook, is based on a strong foundation of identity and connection to Country. From the ancient tradition of storytelling, to the use of virtual reality for a more immersive experience, Warren is a catalyst for growth in our organisation’s cultural capability.
Biomedical Engineering
This 22-person team provides specialist support for the management of medical equipment across the LHD.
With more than 21 thousand devices, excluding medical gas therapy units, in its medical equipment fleet this team has worked to both expand its capacity and capability.
By changing its way of working and creating more flexibility across its sites, the team continues to play a fundamental role in the operation of all our clinical services.
This is a team that values each member’s knowledge and expertise, and leverages that capability, including investing in internships and apprenticeships to help position our District even more firmly as the intelligence, complexity and volume of biomedical services expands in the future.
Bathurst Simulation Team
Since 2024 this team has grown from a single educator to a multidisciplinary team of 18 that prioritises protected education time, and uses simulation as a key strategy.
The value of this work is clear - 95 per cent of participants said simulations were directly relevant to their practice, while 98 per cent described simulation as a positive learning experience.
The Bathurst Simulation Team is built on strong collaboration with everyone – no matter their role – involved in design, set up, facilitation and debriefing.
Building capability and confidence through innovation and commitment, this team is improving how clinical decisions are made and acted on.
Radiation Oncology and PET
It isn’t just the clinical numbers that show how a service is maturing, it’s the achievements that demonstrate it’s moving beyond a provider, and becoming a leader.
Establishing formal, but flexible, research structures has resulted in a 200 per cent increase in conference presentations by the Radiation Oncology and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) team, as well as publication articles, research studies and awards.
With members in Dubbo and in Orange, building a supportive, flexible, accessible research component has been a challenge but the outcomes are meaningful for both our communities, and the future successes of regional radiation oncology.
Pregnancy Options Care and Support Service - RECIPIENT
Pregnancy Options Care and Support Services (POCSS) were established in 2025 and is the first of its kind in NSW.
Providing affordable, timely and person-centred reproductive healthcare to women in rural and remote locations, the service provides a combination of real-life and virtual clinics to keep women as close to home as possible while they receive care coordination, counselling, clinical support and service navigation support.
Within its first year, the service has made a substantial impact and established itself as a sustainable, innovative, trauma-informed model that is reshaping equitable reproductive healthcare for women.
Aunty Ruth Carney
Aunty Ruth is a dedicated volunteer at the Narromine health Service, kindly committing her time, energy and knowledge both to patient care, and to the development of cultural capability.
Aunty Ruth is a warm and kind presence in the Day Centre and her deep connection to her culture brings an important and meaningful dimension to the support she provides to staff, as well as patients.
Aunty Ruth is an advocate who strongly supported the development of remote x-ray operator services in Narromine, a project that has helped reduce the number of people needing to travel, and the amount of time they may need to spend in hospital.
Donna Cain - RECIPIENT
Donna has been a volunteer with our services for seven years and her commitment and professionalism has benefited hundreds of community members as well as our Lachlan Health Service Team.
Donna has been a long-time supporter of Aqua Fitness, graduating through multiple levels of leadership training, and has also completed Community Exercise Training. She has been on-had to support childhood immunisation clinics, audiometry clinics and is also an advocate for volunteering in the wider community.
Donna has introduced multiple innovations that have improved awareness of health and wellness programs, as well as engagement over time with these important interventions. Honest, hard-working, reliable and not afraid to seek to do better and more, Donna is an asset to the LHS team.
Heidi McGlashan
Heidi’s work through the Healthy Warrumbungles project showcases a different type of volunteer; one who is actively shaping and influencing how health services engage with communities.
Widely respected in her community, Heidi was a co-designer, and helped deliver, women’s health evenings in Coonabarabran, Baradine and Dunedoo to build health literacy, encourage early engagement and create supporting spaces.
She has helped found the Warrumbungle Women’s Collective and is an advocate for others who may not necessarily be able to commit to more traditional, though equally important, volunteer roles.
Virtual Support: Proactive Monitoring for Safer Rural Care - RECIPIENT
This award is selected by the ACI each year. Virtual Support: Proactive Monitoring for Safer Rural Care was also a finalist for, and recipient of the 2026 Health Innovation Award.
Read more about the program in the Health Innovation Award section.
Dr Marco Metelo, Director of Medical Services at Bathurst Health Service - RECIPIENT
Dancing Towards Healthy Ageing Across Western NSW - RECIPIENT
This award is voted on by all attendees of the annual Symposium, where all finalists give presentations on their projects.
Dancing Towards Healthy Ageing Across Western NSW was the recipient of this award on 14 votes total, from over 150 attendees. It was also the recipient of the 2026 Keeping People Healthy Award.
Read more about the program in the Keeping People Healthy Award section.
Building Healthy Communities Challenge: Empowering Rural Communities, Delivering Local Change - RECIPIENT
This award is selected by members of the Board in attendance at the Symposium, following all of the finalists' presentations.
Building Healthy Communities Challenge: Empowering Rural Communities, Delivering Local Change was also a finalist for, and recipient of the 2026 Health Equity Award.
Read more about the program in the Health Equity Award section.
MHDA State-wide Transition to Professional Practice - RECIPIENT
This award is selected by WNSWLHD Chief Executive Mark Spittal from all of the finalists, following their presentations at the Symposium.
MHDA State-wide Transition to Professional Practice was also a finalist for the 2026 People and Culture Award.
Read more about the program in the People and Culture Award section.