Prominence was engaged to undertake independents audits of regional Hospital and Health Services’ Safety Management Systems (SMS) to assess alignment with requirements and identify opportunities for improvement.
The engagements combined detailed document review, stakeholder interviews and on-site assessments to evaluate how safety policies and procedures were implemented in practice. Prominence worked closely with leadership and operational teams to validate findings and ensure a balanced and evidence-based assessment.
The audits involved navigating a complex framework with extensive criteria, requiring a structured and disciplined approach to ensure findings were robust, accurate and aligned to organisational context. In addition to identifying compliance gaps, the work focused on broader opportunities to strengthen safety governance, accountability and organisational capability.
Prominence delivered comprehensive audit reports outlining findings, including minor non-conformances and a range of improvement opportunities. The reports included practical, prioritised recommendations to support continuous improvement in safety systems and processes. These engagements provided clear guidance to leadership and operational teams, strengthening understanding of safety requirements and supporting a more consistent and effective approach to workplace health and safety. Feedback highlighted the quality, professionalism and practical value of the insights delivered.
Prominence supported a regional Hospital and Health Service to refresh its People and Culture Service Charter and define service delivery responsibilities for a newly established Workforce Strategy and Capability function.
The engagement was delivered over a 12-week period during a time of organisational change. Prominence worked closely with executive and senior leadership to clarify expectations of the People and Culture function and co-design a service delivery model aligned to broader workforce strategy objectives. This included targeted consultation with HR leadership and key stakeholders to define service standards and improve consistency across the organisation.
A key component of the engagement was the development of 17 role descriptions to support a capability uplift program. These were designed in alignment with organisational frameworks, providing clarity on responsibilities, reporting structures and expected contributions.
Prominence adopted a collaborative and flexible approach to navigate evolving requirements and stakeholder availability, ensuring alignment between strategic intent and operational delivery. The engagement delivered a suite of refreshed service charters and aligned role descriptions, supporting improved role clarity, consistent service delivery and stronger workforce capability. The outputs provided a practical foundation for ongoing transformation and performance improvement within the People and Culture function.
Prominence supported a large state ambulance service to develop a suite of technical reports informing its ten-year Future Fleet Strategy. The engagement addressed challenges including increasing demand, extended vehicle utilisation, rising costs and the integration of advanced technologies.
Prominence undertook detailed analysis of more than 1,600 fleet assets, supported by extensive stakeholder consultation across frontline staff, leadership, suppliers and interstate peers. Site visits and benchmarking were conducted to assess current fleet performance, operational requirements and emerging trends.
Advanced modelling was used to forecast future fleet requirements across different vehicle types and operating contexts. Prominence also assessed opportunities relating to technology, sustainability and alternative fuel options, identifying those with the greatest potential value.
The engagement delivered a comprehensive set of outputs, including current-state analysis, future fleet needs assessment and a technology and sustainability options paper. Recommendations included fleet renewal strategies, new vehicle designs tailored to evolving service models and a transition towards improved ownership and management approaches. The outputs provided a clear, evidence-based roadmap to improve operational readiness, cost efficiency and long-term sustainability. The engagement demonstrated Prominence’s ability to combine technical analysis, stakeholder engagement and strategic planning to support complex, large-scale service environments.
Prominence partnered with a regional Hospital and Health Service to undertake a comprehensive review of its Mental Health, Alcohol and Other Drugs Services in response to increasing demand, workforce pressures and growing service complexity.
Over a 19-week period, Prominence conducted detailed analysis of workforce distribution, service delivery models and governance frameworks. This included assessment of workforce capacity, vacancies and reliance on locums, alongside review of service integration across acute, community and outreach settings. The work was supported by extensive stakeholder engagement, including executive leaders, clinical teams and operational staff, as well as co-design workshops to validate findings and test future-state options.
Prominence developed a future operating model supported by a three-year phased implementation roadmap. The roadmap focused on workforce sustainability, strengthened governance, improved service integration and enhanced consumer outcomes. Particular emphasis was placed on clarifying leadership accountability, improving decision-making structures and transitioning towards a more integrated and patient-centred model of care.
The engagement delivered a comprehensive suite of outputs, including a current state assessment, future service model, workforce analysis and implementation roadmap. Recommendations provided clear, evidence-based pathways to stabilise workforce capacity, reduce reliance on locums and strengthen supervision and training. The work positioned the organisation to deliver more sustainable, coordinated and responsive care, demonstrating Prominence’s capability in supporting complex health service reform.
A large health sector organisation required interim leadership to drive procurement strategy and deliver category management outcomes aligned to organisational and government priorities.
Prominence provided an experienced Category Director to lead the team, develop and implement strategy, and strengthen governance and performance reporting. The role included establishing baselines and targets, leading supplier negotiations and embedding consistent procurement processes. A strong focus was placed on team leadership, capability development and fostering a culture of accountability.
The engagement delivered a comprehensive category strategy, improved procurement governance and measurable savings outcomes. Stakeholder relationships were strengthened, and team capability was enhanced through coaching and leadership support, ensuring continuity and sustained value.
Prominence understands that organisational design and effective workforce planning, together with a positive organisational culture, are integral elements in the success and sustainability of an organisation in delivering on both its strategic agenda and business as usual operations.
These elements shape the working environment and directly impact an organisation’s ability to achieve its strategic goals and adapt to changes in circumstances and the external environment.
Prominence has worked with over 100 public and private sector organisations, including in the health and community services sector, to undertake organisational reviews covering all key elements of good organisational design including structure, leadership, people, systems and processes, governance and culture, or with a specific focus on one or more of these. We have reviewed and made recommendations on more effective operating models, that are then taken forward into new or tweaked organisational designs with refined or redesigned roles, organisation- specific capability frameworks and workforce planning initiatives to help ensure the right people in the right roles at the right time.
Examples in the health and community services sector include the following.
In all our engagements, Prominence consultants review key documentation, analyse data and undertake the appropriate level of stakeholder engagement through interviews, workshops and/or focus groups (together with targeted benchmarking and workforce supply, demand and trend analysis where required) to clearly define the current state and future state requirements to deliver on organisational and workforce objectives. Our consultants leverage various organisational design, culture, leadership and workforce planning frameworks and models, and leading-edge technology to provide organisational and workforce insights (including the ability to objectively measure psychosocial risks) to identify strengths, systemic weaknesses and opportunities for improvement. Outcomes of organisational design and workforce planning engagements generally include both strategic observations and recommendations as well as operationally oriented recommendations for implementation, and the development of roadmaps and/or implementation plans.
Prominence receives exceptional feedback on its flexibility to refine the project approach as new information becomes available or in response to client operational pressures, the team’s strength in stakeholder engagement at all levels of the organisation, including co-design approaches; the ability to share ‘hard to hear’ feedback and insights to leadership (and staff members where required) in a tactful and diplomatic way that engenders buy-in for implementation of recommendations; and our ability to develop concise, practical and prioritised recommendations and implementation plans.
Prominence has been engaged by a range of Hospital and Health Service (HHS) Boards to undertake independent reviews of board performance and to also develop governance and risk management frameworks. These engagements have all involved working directly with the Chair and board of directors, executive teams and functional leads to review the current state/ performance and identify strengths and opportunities to improve.
Prominence deploys a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, benchmarked against relevant State and Federal legislation, regulations, standards, and accepted governance models, frameworks and practices applicable to each statutory body. We tailor our approach for every engagement which often require a combination of data reviews, anonymised surveys, interviews of board members, committee members and selected members of the executive/management team, live board meeting observation, facilitated workshops and benchmarking against other organisations and jurisdictions.
We understand that our findings need to be objective and rigorous but also balanced as many organisations have pockets of good practice which need to be recognised. We also understand that recommendations need to be practical, succinct, prioritised (often based on an assessment of risk) and implemented over an agreed period of time which is commensurate with the organisation’s level of maturity, capability and capacity to implement. In all engagements, our findings and recommendations have been discussed (often through focused workshops) with the Board and executive teams to ensure that there is both agreement and ‘buy in’ to the recommendations. We have successfully provided repeat support to a number of the HHSs which has allowed us to measure and build on the organisation’s performance and increasing maturity over a period of time
Coming from leadership and executive roles across diverse industries, Prominence consultants are highly sought after to support organisations to develop their leaders and implement cultural change. We understand that leaders and workplace culture impacts every aspect of an organisation and its performance, and that aligning leadership behaviours with a positive productive culture leads to improved staff engagement, wellbeing, performance and overall outcomes.
Prominence has supported many of Queensland Health’s Hospital and Health Services (HHS) on their cultural and leadership journeys, and more specifically, the development of their cultural improvement strategies. The development of these cultural improvement strategies required in-depth assessments and diagnosis of the current state leadership governance amongst the executive leadership team (ELT) and of the workplace culture. Prominence recommended strategies and developed plans to address the cultural challenges identified and including improvement strategies in the areas of leadership, governance, process and people.
Strategies and planning were driven by data collected from ELT interviews, facilitated face-to-face cross-sectional team workshops and desktop reviews of the pertinent internal documentation supplied by the HHSs. Various strategic planning and HR-related models were referenced and implemented throughout the project, which enabled opportunities for knowledge transfer and capability development with the HHSs. Findings were analysed and opportunities for reforms in leadership, governance and processes were identified. Emphasis was placed upon the impact of the ELT’s behaviours, both on the culture of the ELT itself and on the organisation.
Final reports included culture improvement strategy/s and plans, with specific recommendations for leadership governance, people and processes, and implementation roadmaps including priorities and timeframes. Following the success of some of these engagements, Prominence was also requested to build upon the cultural strategy implementation plans with one-on-on coaching for selected senior leaders to help them understand and develop the necessary skills and behaviours to lead effectively and with impact. The strategies and the leadership coaching was reported to be highly valuable and accompanied with overwhelmingly positive feedback.
Prominence provides strategy development and strategic workshop facilitation for a wide range of clients, including across the health and community services sector.
These services range from the design and delivery of one or multi-day strategic planning workshops, through to more comprehensive processes including environmental scanning and internal and external stakeholder engagement processes in the lead up to and during the strategic planning process, and post strategy processes, including supporting operational planning cascading from the strategic plan.
We have facilitated strategy development processes for Queensland Department of Health business units, hospital and health services, innovative public sector health/ university partnerships, and non-government community health and community services organisations, working with Board’s, senior executive teams, and steering committees. Our services have included strategic plan refreshes, entirely new look and feel plans, and the development of the very first strategic plan for a public sector/ university partnership.
These engagements have all required our consultants to rapidly review key background documents and engage with key stakeholders to understand the current strategic organisational environment, collective and divergent perspective, and distil or revisit critical issues for future success, to enable the design of a process that ensures strong engagement, robust discussion and debate, and a clear and focused way forward. This at times has required complex, sensitive engagement with internal and external stakeholders.
Our engagement with stakeholders includes exploring individual and collective views on:
While subject to the specific needs of our client, we typically facilitate post planning workshop/s debriefs, and support further refinement and finalisation of the strategic plan document.
Key strengths consistently demonstrated in delivering of strategic planning projects include:
We also use each engagement as an opportunity to upskill those involved in the process in terms of their ability to think and plan strategically and their ability to influence and drive positive change.
Participants consistently report that their individual ideas/ concerns had been heard as part of a reaching a collective view, which enabled effective debate and decision-making at workshops and in the post-workshop follow up processes.
The end deliverable in all our engagements is quality documents that are objective, clear and concise, approved by the client, which clearly articulates the organisations vision, purpose, values, objectives, strategic initiatives, measures of performance along with key risks and opportunities. We produce documents in our clients branded templates or if preferred, in a format best suited to enabling their internal or external designers to produce the final product.
Process improvement can seem a dry subject that is ‘down in the weeds’, however given processes are a key foundational aspect of all organisations, getting them right is critical to an organisation being able to deliver its services in the most efficient and effective way, maximise the client experience and deliver real, ongoing cost savings.
Prominence delivers Lean process improvement facilitation services to organisations and their teams to review and map key processes that they have identified as needing improvement, identify inefficiencies, and deliver more effective, efficient and streamlined processes. The outcome not only eliminates waste in all its forms; it also delivers improved internal or external client experience and service delivery time, and human resource and cost savings. It can also improve staff morale and internal staff relationships that may suffer due to inefficient, unclear and duplicative processes, or the need for frequent reworks or repetitive manual tasks.
We have worked with a range of health and community service organisations, including public sector hospital, disability, aged and residential care services, who have recognised the need to implement changes within the organisation to enhance the culture, levels of innovation, growth potential, productivity and efficiency. We have delivered Lean process improvement projects to in a range of areas including:
We facilitate bespoke services which include designing an approach to suit the specific needs of our clients or using our proven FLIP (Facilitated Lean Improvement Program) approach – a simple Lean Six Sigma approach that uses a project based approach with a team of staff involved in delivering a process, to resolve issues and increase problem solving skills.
FLIP projects work involve 5 stages aligned with the Lean Six Sigma project management approach:
Our approach to delivering process improvement services has the added benefit of upskilling participants in the methods used. Participant and organisational feedback is consistently positive, resulting in new ways of thinking about how they do things that they can apply across other processes in simple but effective ways.
As a foundation for undertaking specific projects, we have worked with teams of identified ‘ambassadors’ or similar within the organisation who help facilitate and champion a range of business improvement areas, to enhance their knowledge and skills in business improvement through a combination of tailored learning and by immersing some of the Ambassadors within a ‘proof of concept’ improvement project. This has resulted in a range of improvement areas being identified and progressed, with the support of an internal staff member, and support from Prominence if required, either to assist with facilitation or provide coaching to internal resources.
Our certified Lean and Six Sigma consultants also provide coaching services where we work with one or a few staff within the organisation, where they first participate in, observe and debrief on the facilitation process, and then we coach and shadow them as they plan for, deliver and follow up on the Lean process workshops themselves.
Following the facilitation of an individual process improvement initiative, we have been re-engaged to conduct a project to upskill, using a coach the coach model, new roles within the organisation – including a Manager, Process Excellence and an Innovation Manager – to lead the continuous improvement agenda, program of work and culture development across the business and facilitate process improvement projects using Prominence’s Facilitated Lean Improvement Program (FLIP) process. We also facilitate the attainment of Green and Yellow Belt certification where an organisation or an individual considers this to be of benefit.
We have also established a licencing agreement whereby clients are able to continue to use the Prominence Facilitated Lean Improvement Project (FLIP) materials (PowerPoint presentations, Word and Excel templates and PDF documentation) to support their ongoing internal improvement projects.