Primary Health Networks (PHNs) play an important role in Australia’s primary healthcare system by assessing local health needs, commissioning services and supporting better connections between healthcare providers. Their work is increasingly complex because PHNs must respond to changing population needs while balancing workforce capacity, funding, service availability, evidence and performance expectations.

Understanding the challenges faced by PHNs in Australia requires looking beyond individual service gaps. Many challenges are interconnected, affecting how PHNs undertake needs assessment, design services, commission providers and measure outcomes.

What Are the Main Challenges Faced by PHNs in Australia?

Understanding Complex Local Health Needs

One of the fundamental responsibilities of a PHN is identifying the health needs of its region. However, local populations are diverse, and health priorities can vary significantly between metropolitan, regional, rural and remote communities.

PHN needs assessment may involve population health data, service utilisation information, community consultation and provider input. Turning this information into clear priorities can be challenging when evidence is incomplete or different communities have competing needs. Effective PHN strategy consulting can support organisations in translating evidence into practical priorities, strategic plans and measurable objectives.

Workforce Shortages and Service Capacity

Workforce availability is another major challenge. Shortages of GPs, allied health professionals, mental health workers and other healthcare professionals can limit the capacity of local services.

For regional and rural PHNs, workforce distribution can be particularly difficult. Recent PHN projects have focused on primary healthcare workforce stability, service access and place-based workforce planning, demonstrating how closely workforce capacity is connected to commissioning and service design.

PHNs therefore need to consider not only what services communities require, but whether sufficient workforce and provider capacity exists to deliver them.

Complex Healthcare Commissioning Decisions

PHN commissioning is more than selecting a provider. It involves understanding local need, assessing the service market, designing appropriate models, considering feasibility and value for money, and establishing arrangements that can deliver measurable outcomes.

Australian Government commissioning guidance highlights areas including planning, market assessment, service design, contracting, governance, value for money and achievability.

This means PHNs need strong commissioning capability to connect community priorities with practical service solutions.

Fragmentation Across Health and Community Services

People with complex needs may interact with GPs, hospitals, mental health providers, aged care services, community organisations and social services. When these systems operate separately, people can experience duplicated services, gaps in care or difficulty navigating the healthcare system.

PHNs are specifically expected to help services connect and improve coordination, making integrated care and cross-sector collaboration an important part of their role.

Data, Evidence and Health Intelligence

Data is central to effective health planning, but having data does not automatically produce better decisions. PHNs need to interpret population trends, service use, workforce information, community feedback and other evidence to determine where investment and intervention are most needed.

The challenge is moving from data collection to actionable health intelligence. Strong evidence should inform prioritisation, service design, commissioning and evaluation rather than simply being used for reporting.

Measuring Performance and Demonstrating Outcomes

PHNs are increasingly expected to demonstrate that commissioned activities are contributing to better health outcomes. Australia’s updated PHN Program Performance Measurement and Reporting Framework 2025 provides an improved approach to assessing PHN Program and individual PHN performance.

This creates a greater need for robust performance indicators, outcome measurement, monitoring and evaluation.

Effective PHN performance improvement therefore requires more than tracking activity. PHNs need to understand whether services are reaching the intended population, addressing identified needs and generating meaningful outcomes.

Health Equity and Access

Improving access is particularly challenging for populations experiencing disadvantage, geographic isolation or barriers to mainstream healthcare.

PHNs must consider the needs of vulnerable and priority populations when undertaking local planning and commissioning. Recent PHN needs-assessment work, for example, has examined homelessness and the implications for service models, system improvement and future commissioning.

Health equity should therefore be integrated into needs assessment, service design, commissioning and evaluation rather than treated as a separate consideration.

Stakeholder Engagement and Local Collaboration

Effective PHN planning depends on engagement with consumers, carers, healthcare providers, community organisations, clinicians and other stakeholders.

The challenge is making engagement meaningful. Consultation should help identify unmet needs, test proposed service models and improve implementation rather than simply validate decisions that have already been made.

This is particularly important for place-based planning, where local knowledge can reveal service barriers that may not appear in national datasets.

How Can PHNs Overcome These Challenges?

Addressing PHN challenges requires an integrated approach rather than isolated solutions. PHN consulting experts can support PHNs through several connected areas.

First, PHNs can strengthen needs assessment and strategic planning by combining population data with community and provider intelligence. Second, commissioning can be improved by assessing local market capacity and designing services around clearly defined outcomes.

PHNs can also strengthen evaluation frameworks so that commissioning decisions are informed by evidence about what works. This creates a continuous cycle:

Needs assessment → Strategy → Service design → Commissioning → Implementation → Performance measurement → Evaluation → Improvement

This approach can also support PHN service optimization, helping organisations identify duplication, access barriers, underused capacity and opportunities to improve service efficiency.

For organisations requiring broader support, healthcare consulting for PHNs can connect strategy, health service planning, commissioning, evaluation, stakeholder engagement and performance improvement into a coordinated approach.

What Is the Future of PHN Planning and Commissioning?

The future of PHN work will increasingly depend on evidence-based decision-making, integrated care, workforce sustainability, health equity and measurable outcomes.

The Australian Government continues to maintain performance frameworks and commissioning guidance designed to help PHNs identify areas for improvement and measure performance against tangible indicators.

For PHNs, the challenge is not simply delivering more services. It is ensuring that services are locally relevant, accessible, coordinated, sustainable and capable of demonstrating meaningful outcomes.

Conclusion

The challenges faced by PHNs in Australia are interconnected. Workforce shortages can limit service capacity, fragmented systems can reduce access, incomplete data can make prioritisation harder, and changing community needs can complicate commissioning decisions.

Addressing these issues requires stronger strategy, evidence-based commissioning, effective stakeholder engagement, robust evaluation and continuous performance improvement. With the right planning and service design approach, PHNs can turn local health intelligence into more responsive healthcare systems and better outcomes for their communities.

Addressing PHN challenges requires an integrated approach rather than isolated solutions. Larter’s healthcare expertise can support PHNs through several connected areas.

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