General Practice & Community Service

The General Practice and Community Service is all about supporting primary health care teams to provide the highest quality care to the people of Canterbury.   We support Pegasus vision that all people living in Canterbury lead healthy lives. 

Through this service Pegasus Health plays an important role in making sure health needs are met across the communities, cultural groups, age groups and in the geographical areas that it serves. We strive for all people, including Māori, to receive access to equitable health.

General practiceOur specialized teams work closely with our general practices and other primary care providers in the following areas:  

General Practice Community Engagement are a large group of varied specialist teams who focus on groups of people who experience barriers to accessing health care and getting their health care needs met. 

This includes:

  • Puāwai Healthy Lifestyles service – the team provides a range of healthy eating/lifestyle programmes in communities
  • Suicide prevention – a dedicated team that leads, coordinates and implements a range of suicide prevention activities designed to reduce the number of suicides and attempted suicides in Canterbury. 
  • Child Health Liaison – frontline team supporting children (and their families) who have emotional and behavioural issues
  • Tautoko Hauora – work with people who are low income, Māori, Pacific, refugees and migrants as well as those who have physical and/or mental health issue(s). Tautoko Hauora focuses on people who are not enrolled in a general practice or who are enrolled but not visiting their general practice teams as often as they need. The team helps identify and manage the barriers that a person/family/whānau may have in accessing health care. Find out more about Tautoko Hauora
  • Here Toitū (previously Step Up) Navigators – work to support individuals living with a health condition or disability to improve their wellbeing, determine their own goals and aspirations, and where appropriate, engage in sustainable earning, learning or volunteering that is meaningful to them. Find out more about Here Toitū
  • Smokefree ABC Team – supports people across Canterbury to become Smokefree by working with General Practice to ensure patients are offered and can access Cessation Support.  The team includes Support Advisors who undertake recalls to overdue patients, and Stop Smoking Practitioners (Quit Coaches) who, along with other Quit Coaches from Te Hā – Waitaha, provide face to face individual or clinic-based support programmes for clients to become Smokefree
  • The Canterbury Before School Check Coordination Team – provide leadership and coordination for all clinical and operational matters of the Before School Check (B4SC) programme in Canterbury.  We focus particularly on the provision of services to high deprivation populations and to high need, Māori, Pasifika and new migrant children with the expectation that it will contribute to the reduction of health inequalities. The team also manage the Pegasus PHO service delivery which includes a dedicated Mobile Outreach service  
  • Immunisation Coordination – supports Pegasus Health and Te Whatu Ora Waitaha Canterbury to deliver the immunisation coordination programme in a way which ensures maximum vaccination coverage is achieved in a compliant manner. The team complete Cold Chain Accreditations, Independent Vaccinator training and support catch up immunisation schedules
  • Residence Youth Health Service –team supports young people living in the Oranga Tamariki residence Te Puna Wai o Tuhinapo  (Youth and correctional justice). The team provides primary health care on-site. The service is nurse-led with the support of General Practitioners. 
Clinical Quality and Education Team

The team provide primary health clinicians (GPs, Nurse Practitioners, nurses and pharmacists) independent, evidence-informed, equity-focussed and peer-led professional development and education opportunities to support best practice.

Practice Relationship Team

Supports general practices and their community partners to deliver a better patient and staff experience, improved quality of care and greater business efficiency using a continuous improvement framework. 

Management Services Organisation (MSO)

Management Services Organisation administers services, including practice contracts, payments and reports.