Diversity, equity and inclusion

At Alfred Health, we welcome everyone. Being inclusive and providing equitable healthcare is our commitment. We are working to ensure that our services are fair, accessible and appropriate for all patients, visitors and carers in the community we serve.

Patients Come First

Alfred Health's Patients Come First Strategy has evolved from the belief patients are the reason we are here – they are the focus of what we do. The strategy provides a roadmap for the organisation to work towards our primary goal of providing high-quality, equitable person cented care.

Person centred care uses an intersectional approach that supports the various unique aspects of individuals and is the foundation for equitable healthcare. If we adapt to meet a person’s own unique characteristics, capabilities and strengths while being responsive to their changing needs and care preferences, we can use this knowledge to support people to be active participants in their own care.

Find out more about Patients Come First

Supporting equitable healthcare

Building on the fundamentals of person centred care in the Patients Come First Strategy, we've worked with our staff, consumers and community to develop additional plans to support equitable healthcare.

Listening to our diverse community

We're passionate about improving experiences at our services. This means listening and responding to feedback from our diverse community, building partnerships through our Consumer Advisor program and working closely with community groups to priortise improvements. Find out about some of the recent improvements we have made below.

If you have recently used one of services and have noticed ways that we could make improvements, we'd like to hear from you. Use the feedback form to tell us your suggestions.

Changing Places at The Alfred

As part of our vision to provide an inclusive, safe and accessible environment, Alfred Health has created a changing places room following feedback from our patients about appropriate facilities. Some of our patients and visitors require complex support, which means they are unable to use standard accessible toilets and amenities. The facility is now listed on the Changing Places website for wider community use.

Find out more

Womindjeka Welcome Wall

The Womindjeka Welcome Wall, is a collaboration between the Boon Wurrung Foundation and Elders, Alfred Health and Hayball Architects, and was launched in recognition of NAIDOC Week as one of the priorities from our Reconciliation Action Plan. It forms part of a redeveloped front entrance to The Alfred which has been designed as an inclusive and respectful area for everyone to feel welcome.

Find out more

Our diversity, equity and inclusion journey

Diversty and inclusion training

Highlights

  • We partnered with SBS and Safer Care Victoria to develop a mandatory online training package for staff, with the aim of building capacity to meet the needs of our diverse community. The aim was to move away from a siloed approach by developing skills and awareness that can apply to many types of diversities. So far 79% of staff have completed the training.

What are we working towards

  • In January 2021, we launched a Managers Module as part of the online training package. Topics include recruitment bias, organisational benefits of diversity and managing a diverse team. So far 9 managers have completed this training and we are now working towards offering this to all leaders at the organisation.
  • Developing intersectionality training sessions for staff to further understand people’s experiences and unique identities.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders

Highlights

  • The front entrance to The Alfred has been designed as an inclusive and respectful area for everyone to feel welcome. The spirit of Country and community is celebrated with the Womindjeka Welcome Wall.

  • Face-to-face and online 'yarns' about Indigenous Culture have been provided to staff in key areas by an Aboriginal Engagement Consultant. The sharing of stories, history and culture with our staff is seen as an important step towards reconciliation.

What are we working towards

  • We are in the process of developing our next Reconciliation Action Plan. Find out more about the ways you can get involved.
Culturally and Linguistically Diverse

Highlights

  • The pandemic provided opportunities to maximise the use of technology and innovation in providing interpreting services. A new in-house telephone interpreting service was established that utilised the skills of existing interpreters within the service.

What are we working towards

  • Our Video Interpreting Project is currently in a pilot phase. We have partnered with Ezispeak to offer video interpreting services. Once the pilot is evaluated we plan to launch services on a wider scale to our services.
People living with a disability

Highlights

  • We've introduced a team of Disability Liaison Officers (DLOs) who can support our patients with disability, their carers and Alfred Health staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. Find out more.

What are we working towards

  • The SPEAK (SPecialist Education And Knowledge) Project commenced in September 2020.  The project aims to build capability in the health workforce and improve processes to meet the healthcare needs of people with disability, particularly those with intellectual disability, communication disability and autism.
LGBTIQ+

Highlights

  • In June 2018, Alfred Health in partnership with DHHS held a LGBTIQ+ Inclusive Practice Forum for health services. One of the key themes from the day was the lack of support for healthcare staff. As a result, we launched a Caring for our LGBTIQ+ Patients website as a staff resource for supporting equitable healthcare for patients that identify as LGBTIQ+.

What are we working towards

  • Working towards intersectionality training sessions for staff to further understand people’s experiences of race, socio-economic background, sex, gender and sexuality and their unique identity.
  • We're working towards developing a Trans and Gender Diverse Inclusive Practice training session for staff. We're partnering with Alfred Health patients that identify as trans or gender diverse to use their lived experience as patient stories as a central part of the training.
Vulnerable people in our community

Highlights

  • The Family Violence Project has continued to provide clinicians and managers training in family violence across the organisation. The Project also co-ordinates and provides mandatory family violence education to key staff groups. The Project has been leading the implementation of the triple family violence reform at Alfred Health: The MARAM framework and Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme (FVISS) and Child Information Sharing Scheme (CISS). Since April 19th 2021 Alfred Health is a prescribed organisation under the framework and schemes, and the Project is ensuring the organisation meets its related legal obligations.

What are we working towards

  • A key action of the Access and Inclusion Pan (Disability) is to increasing the amount of Alfred Health produced patient information in accessible formats. A project has commenced to create Easy English versions of the most used Alfred Health resources.