Primary Health Care Preparedness

Outreach Services

In Phase Red of a pandemic there may be very large numbers of people in a community who are sick at home. It will be very important for every district to make plans for how to respond to illness within the community.

Particular recognition needs to be given to the many very vulnerable people in our communities - isolated individuals living alone, those in poverty, solo parents, those with very limited social support, the physically handicapped, mental illness.

Many areas are discussing developing outreach services on the premise that the safest place for people is at home and taking services to the people, rather than people to the services, may be a safer and more rational strategy.

The style, type and amount of outreach services will depend on the decisions of each locality. It is likely that a service would develop based on telephone triage, identification of influenza cases, recommending the individual stays at home and sending outreach services in to them to the extent possible. However, it needs to be recognised that during a significant pandemic resources will be severely constrained, in turn constraining the extent to which provision of outreach services will be possible.