Across the dividing range - bridging the divides: Pharmacy opportunities across the hospital/community and inter-professional divides in rural and remote Australia

Rural and remote areas of Australia offer many opportunities for innovation in healthcare services. Some true healthcare 'network' models based around rural pharmacy can be established and evaluated. The lines between community and hospital pharmacy are often blurred and communication between health professionals enhanced. The blurring divide between hospital and community pharmacy in rural and remote areas has provided significant advances in practice. Projects have been set up to investigate the feasibility of community pharmacists integrating care for patients. These projects take advantage of the dual roles and the enhanced interaction between pharmacists and other health professionals in the bush. Opportunities for provision of clinical services beyond the traditional supply role have been taken in a number of remote communities

Towards a profitable and sustainable future for grain growers: A professional development model for farm partners

Many Australian grain growers need to change their management approach to ensure their continued viability, but do not have the required knowledge and skills. Uptake of relevant education and training is poor, despite the positive correlation between learning, change and farm viability. As men are generally occupied with the operational aspects of the farm, much of the management role has been taken on by their partners, despite their lack of relevant formal qualifications. Professional development of farm partners therefore has the potential to improve the viability of grain growers. A model combining learning circles and action learning projects is proposed.

Room to move? Professional discretion at the frontline of welfare-to-work

Outcomes of social policies have always been mediated by the discretionary agency of front-line staff, processes which nevertheless have received insufficient attention in policy evaluation and in the social policy literature more broadly. This article takes the case example or the policy reforms associated with the Australian government's welfare-to-work agenda. Drawing on two discreet research projects undertaken at different points in the policy trajectory, the practices of social workers in Centrelink - the Commonwealth government's primary service delivery agency involved in welfare-to-work - is examined. Centrelink social workers have been and remain one of the core groups of specialist staff since the Department's inception in the late 1940s, working to improve the well being Of people in receipt of income security. Their experiences of the recent past and their expectations of the future of their professional practice as welfare reform becomes more entrenched are canvassed. In summary, the discretionary capacity of the Centrelink social workers to moderate or shape the impact of policy on income security recipients is steadily eroding as this group of professionals is increasingly captured by the emerging practices of workfare.