Implementing an alliance governance framework in health care defines how partners collaborate, communicate, co-commission and co-ordinate mutually agreed goals and outputs. The principles which sit behind and enable this include trust and commitment among the partners, flexibility and valuing each partner’s organisational reality. 

Opportunities currently exist to support increased uptake of the model but require local and national commitment, leadership and policy support to progress. This evidence brief reports on the successful implementation of this approach in primary health care in South West Queensland.

As international health care reforms look to promote ongoing collaboration and accountability to improve access to services and improving population health, little is known about which kinds of collaborations work, for whom, and in what contexts. Addressing governance challenges is key to such collaborations. 

One such mechanism to embed ongoing service integration across primary secondary health care is that of alliance contracting or alliance governance. Alliancing supports independently governed services to work together to focus on shared problems, developing collaborative whole system approaches by developing commitment and trust between alliance partners.