(Date Published: 15 Oct 2008)
Report on GICS attendance at
The Home and Community Care (HACC) Expo
Held in Ararat on 17th July 2008
The Grampians Integrated Cancer Service (GICS) was invited to participate in the Home and Community Care (HACC) Health and Wellbeing Expo which was held at the Ararat Performing Arts Centre Town Hall on Thursday 17 July 2008. The HACC Expo is a joint initiative of Centacare, the Department of Human Services Home and Community Care and HACC-funded agencies within the Grampians/Pyrenees catchment region. Sharon Daly(Quality Co-ordinator) and Maree White(Cancer Service Improvement Co-ordinator) represented GICS by conducting a stall at the Expo.
The aims of attendance were three fold:
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to educate cancer service providers about the role of GICS
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to elicit information in the form of responses to a survey about cancer service improvement ideas from the general public
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to raise overall awareness about the Grampians Integrated Cancer Service
In order to achieve this, GICS information packs were handed out to the service providers who were present on the day with the intent that they be forwarded on to the relevant personnel within the health service. Additionally, email addresses were exchanged so that a service barrier survey can be sent to service providers to get feedback about difficulties that they have with delivery of their service to cancer patients in particular. A consumer survey was conducted on the day, asking generally for ideas about how to improve cancer services from the patient’s perspective. (31 surveys were completed and the results will be presented in a separate report)
The Expo was well attended, with between 230-250 general public members circulating (based on the number of Expo bags given out by the organizers of the event) and some 50 stall-holders representing diverse areas of community care in the region. Specifically, health services represented included: Beaufort & Skipton Health Services, Central Highlands & Wimmera Breastscreen, Ararat Breast Cancer Support Group, East Wimmera Health Services, District Nursing – Stawell and Women’s Health – Grampians among others.
We would like to thank Mars, Ballarat who kindly supplied an array of chocolates which were given to those members of the public who approached our stall and completed a survey, and Stems Flower Market who contributed a beautiful arrangement of brightly coloured carnations which helped to attract attention and draw people to the GICS stall.
We also acknowledge CeCC at the University of Ballarat for the donation of 2 bottles of wine which will be given by draw to one of the respondents to the service provider’s survey which will be emailed out in the near future to contacts made at the Expo.
Sharon Daly Maree White
(Quality Co-ordinator) (Cancer Service Improvement Co-ordinator) | 
