RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

South West Sydney is virtually a ‘green field’ site for health and medical research. The challenge is to develop a research community that:

• meets the most stringent criteria of research excellence;
• helps the South West Sydney community achieve the highest quality and most equitably shared health care services; and
• is outcomes and results oriented such that research, whether it be basic, applied or clinical in orientation, leads to demonstrable improvements in the health of the people of South West Sydney and the nation.

To achieve these goals singularly is no easy task, to achieve them together is perhaps the greatest challenge a research community can face. However, it is the responsibility of all area health services to provide support for and undertake health and medical research.

As the frontispiece quotation of this report suggests, while Australian health care research ranks with the best in the world, the enduring challenge is to integrate excellence with equity and tangible health outcomes. The advantage of South West Sydney is that the area can plan to achieve these goals from scratch and, in the process, learn from the experiences of more established research communities.

If the research stakeholders and health managers in South West Sydney work together and support a common strategy there is every reason to believe that within five to ten years the area can develop a world class research capacity in a number of areas. However, if rivalries develop for what is currently a relatively small amount of funding for research and development, then the time horizon will stretch out indefinitely and it is unlikely that there will be any research winners in the foreseeable future. There is much in the adage that a champion team will always beat a team of champions

This report, commissioned by South Western Sydney Area Health Service (SWSAHS), is in part a response to the Department of Health’s call for the development of R & D policies by Area and District Health Services. It also comes at a very important time for the small but dynamic SWS research community. In developing this report we have consulted with a number of the key managers and stakeholders (see acknowledgements) to learn of the current state of research in the region and to canvass views on how the future SWS research effort can be improved and developed. Accordingly we have made a number of recommendations for debate and discussion by Area management and by the SWS Research Community.

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