The Victorian Public Healthcare Awards recognise leadership and excellence in the provision of publicly funded healthcare in response to established and emerging community needs.
The award categories reflect the Victorian Government's healthcare priorities and focus on the sector's ability to drive change and improve health outcomes for all Victorians.
We also celebrate our health volunteers as part of the awards.
This year we refined the award categories to sharpen the focus on impact, innovation and excellence. Many of the well-known categories remain, however, we made some changes to better reflect services and initiatives meeting the evolving needs of our Victorian community and will recognise achievements in 16 categories across three types of awards:
Achievement eligibility
This year's entries related to achievements in the last 12 months before nominations opened - from 12 May 2024 – 11 May 2025. The initiative may have started earlier, but the achievements highlighted in the entry must have occurred within this period.
General Awards
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This award recognises outstanding initiatives that protect and promote the health, wellbeing, and safety of Victorians through accessible, community-based care. This category honours programs that take a proactive approach to preventing poor health outcomes and delivering high-quality care where people live - whether at home, in local settings, or through virtual and outreach services.
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This award recognises initiatives that work to deliver a modern, safe and sustainable healthcare system that meets the needs of all Victorians now and into the future, with a particular focus on environmental sustainability.
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This award recognises mental health and wellbeing initiatives that advance the Royal Commission's vision of creating a compassionate mental health system based on lived experience leadership, holistic treatment, and support for all Victorians.
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This award celebrates outstanding work in Victoria's Public Sector Residential Aged Care Services that deliver programs and services to meet the needs of the increasing number of older Victorians.
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This award recognises organisations that are delivering the outcomes that matter most to people and populations through the principles of value-based healthcare.
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This award recognises initiatives that improve the health and well-being of Victorian women. Of particular focus will be health promotion, disease prevention and early intervention initiatives specific to women, maternity services, sexual and reproductive health.
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This award recognises innovation in health service delivery that is culturally responsive, promotes inclusion, advances Aboriginal self-determination and, above all, delivers improved health and wellbeing outcomes for Aboriginal people in Victoria.
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This award recognises organisations that have taken initiative to provide equitable and inclusive healthcare for our diverse communities. These initiatives have worked towards improving health and wellbeing outcomes for our diverse communities, such as LGBTIQA+ people, multicultural people and/or people with disability, and their families and communities.
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This award recognises initiatives that improve employee experience, safety and wellbeing; build workforce capacity and capability; or advance future roles and capabilities including advancing models of care through technology.
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This award recognises outstanding collaboration between services delivering public healthcare, to achieve better outcomes for their patients. The focus of this award is on how the partnership is enabling services to genuinely work together to address common problems and improve outcomes.
To be eligible for this award, at least one party must be a health service. Partnerships may be between health services or between a health service and another organisation (i.e. Public Health Network, community health, local Government, etc).
Premier's Health Service of the Year Awards
The Premier's Health Service of the Year Awards are Victoria's most prestigious accolade to which a health service can aspire. These awards recognise leadership and excellence in the provision of publicly funded healthcare for the Victorian community.
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11. Premier’s Primary Healthcare Service of the Year
12. Premier’s Small Health Service of the Year
13. Premier’s Medium Health Service of the Year
14. Premier’s Large Health Service of the Year
Volunteer Awards
We continue to celebrate our health volunteers as part of the Victorian Public Healthcare Awards.
This gives more prominence to how we recognise our volunteers and show that they are not separate to our healthcare sector, but an essential part of how we care for Victorians.
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15. Health Volunteer Team of the Year
Recognising outstanding contributions from volunteer teams.
16. Health Volunteer Honour Roll
(This category is not judged).
Recognising and celebrating our volunteers with 30 or more years of service. Inductees will feature on our website and receive a special commemorative pin in honour of their service and commitment to the Victorian community.
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Reviewed 24 March 2026