Progress by Design: A Landmark Report for Australian Primary Care Reform

Published: June 2026 Category: Health System Reform | Team-Based Care | Value-Based Healthcare

The Progress by Design: Change Readiness and Breakthrough Innovation in Primary Care report has just been published, and it represents one of the most grounded, actionable contributions to Australia's primary care reform conversation in recent years.

At Prestantia Health, we have been working at the intersection of clinical practice and health system design for nearly a decade. This report reflects much of what we know from direct experience: that the capability to transform primary care already exists within the sector. What has been missing is the system architecture and leadership to support it.

About the Report

The report is a synthesis of a national roundtable held on 5 December 2025 at The George Institute for Global Health, Health Translation Hub, University of New South Wales. Co-hosted by The George Institute, the International Centre for Future Health Systems at UNSW, Inala Primary Care Brisbane, and Next Practice Deakin ACT, the roundtable brought together clinicians, consumers, policymakers and researchers from across Australia who have been pioneering team-based, person-centred models of care.

The task was not to debate whether reform is needed — that consensus has long existed. The task was to focus on how to make it happen at scale, across a diverse range of practice settings and communities.

The Central Finding

Consultations revealed strong agreement on a core principle:

"Australia's primary care system holds the capability to deliver modern, team-based care. What is missing is the system architecture and leadership to support it."

The main challenge is not lack of will. It is the absence of targeted funding, structured support, and the governance frameworks needed to enable the transition to integrated, team-based primary care — care that puts the right person, in the right place, at the right time.

Five Key Enablers for Change

The report identifies five enablers that must be addressed across primary care practices, regional bodies, and government agencies simultaneously:

1. Adapt to a sustainable investment approach

The current fee-for-service model constrains flexibility and provides limited incentive for multidisciplinary care, prevention, or care coordination. Moving toward blended funding models that reward continuity, teamwork, and proactive, people-centred care is essential. Funding structures need to incentivise outcomes, equity, and team-based coordination rather than volume alone.

2. Rework and integrate clinical governance

Existing clinical governance models were not designed for multidisciplinary teams. Genuine reform requires governance structures that enable competency-based delegation, clarify accountability across roles, support nurses, pharmacists and allied health professionals to work to their full scope, and build cultures of safety, quality and innovation.

3. Build digital and data infrastructure and quality improvement capability

Effective team-based care relies on shared, meaningful data. Investment is needed in interoperable platforms, shared patient records, decision-support tools, and the workforce capability to use and act on data for proactive, population-based care.

4. Formalise support for change management in primary care

Past reforms failed in part because they assumed practices could self-implement major change without adequate resourcing or support. Practice-level transformation requires dedicated time, skilled facilitation, leadership development, and structured change management support — and this must be funded and recognised as a core system capability.

5. Promote structural and cultural change towards a sustainable and integrated workforce

Moving from GP-dependent care to GP-led shared-care models requires cultural change at every level of the health system. Teams need environments, workflows, and governance structures that support genuine collaboration, shared responsibility, and psychological safety.

Six Recommended Next Steps

The report proposes six concrete next steps aligned with national reform directions:

1. Co-develop a national implementation framework involving government, PHNs, colleges, practices, and consumer groups

2. Progress the incremental introduction of blended funding for team-based models, with voluntary participation and strong evaluation

3. Develop a national clinical governance model for multidisciplinary primary care — adaptable for practices of all sizes

4. Invest in a national primary care digital backbone, including standards for shared care plans, structured data, and decision-support

5. Create a national change management support program for practices, including coaching, templates, communities of practice, and funded leadership roles

6. Capture and translate early adopter experience into a national repository of case studies, workflows, and implementation guidance

Prestantia Health's Role in This Work

This report resonates deeply with the work Prestantia Health has been doing in partnership with Primary Health Networks across Australia.

Supporting health systems to take a value-based, team-based approach to care is at the core of what we do. We have worked alongside practice teams to build the governance frameworks, data capability and change management foundations that genuine multidisciplinary care requires — helping practices make the practical shift from GP-dependent to GP-led models, in ways that are sustainable and responsive to local context and community need.

The enablers outlined in this report are not theoretical to us. They reflect the real work happening on the ground in practices we have had the privilege of working alongside — practices that are proof that transformation is not only necessary, but achievable.

A Proud Moment: Next Practice Deakin as a Case Study

Next Practice Deakin

We are particularly proud that our sister organisation, Next Practice Deakin, is featured as one of the case studies in this landmark report.

Since opening in Canberra in 2021, Next Practice Deakin has been committed to a model of care that embodies exactly what this report calls for: GP-led but not GP-dependent, built on shared purpose and trust, with a purpose-designed physical environment that puts the patient and the team — not the individual practitioner — at the centre.

The consulting rooms at Next Practice Deakin are patient rooms. The health team comes to the patient, not the other way around. Behind the consulting spaces sits a team collaboration area designed for genuine shared care: case discussions, team huddles, coordinated decision-making. It is a model that matured from a roles-and-responsibilities framework into something more — a flexible, agile approach to care where the best person available meets each patient's needs at each point in their journey.

That recognition in the Progress by Design report is a testament to the dedication of the entire Next Practice Deakin team, and to what becomes possible when an organisation genuinely commits to doing healthcare differently.

What Comes Next

This report demonstrates that the expertise and ambition to deliver team-based primary care already exists within the Australian health sector. The discussions it synthesises point to strong agreement on the practical steps needed to move from intention to implementation.

For health system leaders, primary care organisations, Primary Health Networks, and government agencies, this is a report worth reading carefully. It offers not just a vision, but a roadmap.

At Prestantia Health, we look forward to contributing to the work ahead — as we have been doing for years, working alongside the people and organisations who are already building the health system Australia needs.

Read the full report:  Progress by Design: Change Readiness and Breakthrough Innovation in Primary Care 

Prestantia Health is an Australian health organisation combining direct primary care clinical services with specialist healthcare consultancy. We partner with governments, Primary Health Networks, and provider organisations to support the shift to value-based, team-based, person-centred care. Learn more at  prestantiahealth.com .