Kalgoorlie Primary Care Workforce and Service Access Review for WAPHA
Status:
Completed December 2025
Client:
Western Australian Primary Health Alliance (WAPHA)
Background
Western Australian Primary Health Alliance (WAPHA) commissioned this review to better understand ongoing primary care workforce instability and access challenges in Kalgoorlie, despite sustained recruitment activity and investment.
The review was designed to move beyond describing workforce shortages, and instead examine how workforce, service access and system conditions interact in practice, providing an evidence base to support future commissioning and service design decisions in a complex regional context.
Approach
Beacon Strategies undertook a mixed-methods, system-level review between August and December 2025, integrating quantitative data analysis with qualitative stakeholder insight. The approach included:
A structured desktop review of relevant national, state and regional policy, strategy and planning documents
Workforce supply analysis, drawing on available workforce datasets to examine workforce composition, distribution and areas of structural vulnerability
Service demand and access analysis, using population, health need and service utilisation indicators to understand pressure points within the primary care system
Service and workforce mapping to understand how primary care is delivered across the local context
Extensive stakeholder engagement, including service providers, clinicians, Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations, training institutions and WAPHA staff
Thematic analysis of stakeholder experience to understand how system conditions operate in practice
Synthesis across data and lived experience, applying analytical frameworks to identify recurring patterns and system dynamics
Rather than relying on any single data source, findings were triangulated across datasets, stakeholder experience and documented service context to build a coherent picture of how the system functions.
Outcome
Beacon Strategies delivered a comprehensive Primary Care Workforce and Service Access Review for Kalgoorlie.
The final report provides a consolidated evidence base that brings together workforce data, service access indicators and stakeholder perspectives, and is designed to support informed commissioning, planning and decision-making grounded in local conditions.
How this project reflects our vision
This project supports Beacon Strategies’ vision of a more impactful social purpose sector by strengthening understanding of how systems operate in practice, enabling more informed, place-based decision-making and supporting commissioning approaches that respond to real-world conditions rather than assumptions.
We support Primary Health Networks and system partners to understand complex service environments, assess workforce and access challenges, and develop evidence-informed approaches to planning and commissioning. Explore more of our work in Health Planning.