Advance notice: Health Care Neighbourhood Project in Brimbank (open RFT – neighbourhood care team)

North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network (NWMPHN) will soon seek a suitable provider to deliver the neighbourhood care team component of NWMPHN’s Health Care Neighbourhood Project in the Brimbank local government area.

The neighbourhood care team will play a key role in delivering multidisciplinary care to patients with complex needs. It must comprise three mobile, general practice-embedded teams, each including a credentialed mental health professional/clinician, a clinical care coordinator and a social worker.

Each mobile team will be commissioned to work at least one day per week at the three practices assigned to them.

Maximum funding of $2,811,600.00 (ex. GST) to 30 June 2028 is available for the successful applicant.

The request for tender (RFT) is expected to be released on 2 June 2026, with submissions closing on 7 July 2026 at 3pm AEST.

What is the Health Care Neighbourhood Project?

As part of the Australian Government’s Strengthening Medicare reforms, primary health networks across the country are building multidisciplinary care teams to deliver high-quality continuity of care to address people’s health needs.

With funding from the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, NWMPHN is delivering the ‘Health Care Neighbourhood Project’. It is already deploying the project in the local government areas (LGAs) of Hume and Melton, linking allied health professionals and general practices to improve the health of under-served patients.

For this opportunity, the service model will be expanded to include patients with severe and complex mental ill health.

The goal of the Brimbank Health Care Neighbourhood Project is to build capability and improve patient outcomes, care choices, and quality of life through multidisciplinary collaboration in managing chronic conditions and mental health within primary care.

The target population includes people living in Brimbank who have one or more of:

• chronic conditions and/or psychosocial complexities
• chronic disease and moderate intensity mental health conditions
• severe and complex mental ill health affecting daily functioning.

The neighbourhood care team

The neighbourhood care team is critical to the viability of the Health Care Neighbourhood Project.

The successful organisation will provide three mobile, three-person teams to work with selected general practices in the Brimbank LGA. A commissioning process to source these practices will also commence soon.

Each mobile team will work at least one day per week at the practices assigned to it.

Teams will embed with practice staff to support coordinated, person-centred and comprehensive care, while maintaining consistency in service delivery across all practices through a single model.

Each mobile team will comprise:

• A credentialed mental health professional/clinician with community-based mental health experience, such as a mental health occupational therapist, psychologist, credentialed mental health social worker or credentialed mental health nurse.
• A clinical care coordinator with a nursing or allied health qualification and experience in care coordination.
• A generalist social worker.

Eligibility

Suitable organisations might come from the community health, allied health or adjacent sectors.

Please note that hospitals and acute care service providers are not eligible to apply for this funding. It is intended for primary care providers only. However, if an organisation classified as a hospital or acute care provider also operates community health or primary care services within Brimbank, it may be eligible but only if it can clearly demonstrate that those services meet all required capabilities outlined in this RFT.

Also, providers that intend to participate in the project as a general practice are not eligible to apply for this neighbourhood care team component of the funding

Market briefing

An online market briefing session will be held from 12pm to 1pm AEST on Thursday, 28 May 2026.

Click here to register for the session.

Attendees will be able to ask questions via the Q&A during the briefing. Answers will be released with the tender.

A recording of the briefing will also be available in the RFT pack.

Tender process

The RFT is expected to be released on 2 June 2026, with submissions closing on 7 July 2026 at 3pm AEST.

NWMPHN will use Tenderlink as the portal for this opportunity. To apply, interested providers must be registered on Tenderlink. Visit tenderlink.com/mpcn and view Tenderlink registration information (.pdf) for account set-up instructions.

A notification will also be published in NWMPHN’s e-newsletter and on our website when the RFT opens.

Key dates

Dates marked with (*) are indicative only.

Communication and enquiries

As this advance notice is the first step of an approach to market, NWMPHN cannot currently respond to enquiries about this opportunity.

Questions can be submitted in writing via Tenderlink once the RFT opens.