The Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW (AH&MRC) and the NSW Rural Doctors Network (RDN) have worked in close collaboration to develop and distribute an Administration Manual for Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHSs) in rural NSW. The manual has been designed to enable ACCHSs to develop or revise policies and procedures for their medical services, and to assist those who wish to move towards and through the accreditation process. It includes accreditation-specific, copyright material generously provided by QIP/AGPAL as well as materials specific to Aboriginal Medical Services. During late 2006, five ACCHSs (both urban and rural) piloted the draft manual, providing feedback that was incorporated into the final version.

Funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing's Rural and Remote General Practice Program (RRGPP), the manual is provided in Word format so that ACCHSs can download the document and customise all or part of it to suit their needs.

The manual comprises two Word documents. The first is the instructions on how to use the manual and easily customise it to suit the individual service. The second is the manual itself (2MB) which has been designed with links to relevant web pages to ensure that as much information as possible remains current.

The manual will be updated regularly and subsequent versions will be placed on both this website, and that of RDN

To help ACCHSs to develop their own job descriptions, one NSW Rural ACCHS has provided a list of job descriptions which have been de-identified for general use.

For further assistance with this manual, contact either: Jenny Hunt at AH&MRC on ph: (02) 9212 4777 email: adminmanual@ahmrc.org.au or Estrella Lowe at RDN on ph: (02) 9224 8000, email: elowe@nswrdn.com.au