Our Five-Year Strategy 2023 – 2028
Why Further Together?
Almost 2 million people call regional, rural and remote NSW home. That’s one in four people in NSW that live outside our urban centres.
Community spirit runs high in these diverse and resilient communities – many of which have been shaped by generations of people working in the agribusiness and manufacturing industries.
Our regions, the backbone of the state, generate one-fifth of the Gross State Product. However, at a population level, people living in these parts experience significantly poorer health outcomes, greater incidents of chronic disease and greater premature deaths when compared to their metropolitan counterparts.
Graphic: Strategy
In addition, over the last few years, these communities have been disproportionately impacted by drought, bushfires, floods and COVID-19, contributing to an increased need for health care services and support.
Despite the demand for health care services continuing to rise, health workforce shortages, economic pressures and the tyranny of distance means access to quality healthcare is increasingly challenging for these communities.
We are a not-for-profit that goes further
With our highly trained workforce of primary and allied health professionals, specialist medical emergency professionals, pilots, operations teams and engineers, we are on the ground in regional NSW, on standby 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
For 95 years, we have been integral to the communities we serve. From the creation of the first version of telehealth – a pedal-powered radio used in the first years of the RFDS, which went on to connect remote communities to each other for the very first time – to delivering vital services day in day out, even in challenging times when pandemics and natural disasters strike. We are part of the fabric of regional, rural and remote NSW.
Graphic: Further Together
Our services are a vital lifeline for the communities who rely on us.
We take this responsibility seriously – providing lifesaving outback emergency aeromedical retrievals and hospital transfers, as well as proving over 85,000 occasions of care through on the ground GP and nurse appointments, dental care, mental health care, alcohol and other drug counselling, vaccinations, chronic disease management and telehealth.
We already go further than many others to support. There is so much good we already do. But the landscape changes around us. It’s constantly in flux and we need to go further still. This five-year strategy ‘Further Together’ will see the RFDS reach its 100th anniversary, which we will proudly celebrate in 2028. With this in mind, we remain grateful for your continued support.
To achieve our goals and deliver on our promises, we will all need to work differently and aim higher. We look forward to going further, together.
