Helping you and your practice team prepare for winter

Winter Planning Toolkit

Importance of preparation for winter

As we enter the cooler months, it is important for your practice to consider and implement winter preparedness activities to ensure the health and safety of your patients and practice team. The Winter Planning Toolkit highlights key priorities and principles of:

infection prevention and control
workforce protection and planning
processes for patient management
managing the risk of cross infection
health and wellbeing of staff

This toolkit is also relevant to the Northern parts of Australia experiencing the dry season during the winter months. It is common to see an increase in infection risk due to a rise in tourism during this time.

Complexity of patient care with influenza and COVID-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic, transmission of influenza (flu) virus has reduced, despite lower levels of flu vaccine coverage compared with previous years. With international borders now open, greater population mobility and the removal of many state and territory COVID-19 prevention measures (such as wearing of face masks), a resurgence of flu and other respiratory viral illnesses is anticipated in 2022. This could be a particularly challenging winter, with high numbers of COVID-19 cases still in the community