"You're 3 Steps Away From The $500,000 NRRHIP Grant"

ROUND 5 is NOW OPEN! (… Closing Sep 30th)

Dear Health Practitioner, 

You've probably heard of the $46 million NRRHIP program and how it can help your practice. However, you may be reluctant to invest time and energy to complete the grant application.

After all, the vast majority of NRRHIP applications are unsuccessful. Submitting a grant application that is rejected does not only lowers morale but also wastes valuable resources... with nothing to show for it but a letter of rejection (even if it's politely worded... giving you hope but not funding).

This is particularly true with NRRHIP rounds...which are extremely competitive.

In fact, did you know that in the previous round (Round 4)…

86% of NRRHIP Applicants were Unsuccessful!

That's right... almost 9 out of 10 people who applied, were rejected.

It's your choice... to be:

1. Part of this statistic in Round 5 ... or
2. In the top 10% of applicants that 'get the money'

Round 5 is the last round... then the NRRHIP Funding is Gone!

That's why BEFORE you even consider starting an application, answer the following 3 questions:

1. When was the last time you successfully applied for a competitive government grant?
2. Do you have time to read through 100+ pages of guidelines and supporting material?
3. Do you even know where to start?

That's where Grant Solutions can help by:

1. Doing all the work
2. Taking all the risk

In fact, submitting NRRHIP grant applications is our specialty. 

In Round 4, Grant Solutions submitted 4 client application and 'got the money' for all of them.  Sure, it wasn’t easy (our consultants spent close to 100 hours per application) but each client got the result they were looking for (over $100K for their project).

In fact, 2 of our clients unsuccessfully applied themselves for NRRHIP in Round 3... and didn't want to (nor could they afford to) be rejected again. 

In Round 4, they took the smart option...used our services… and were successful.

Why did these NRRHIP applications fail initially?

The majority of unsuccessful submissions did have significant merit… but they were unable to successfully communicate that merit through the application form. Even if they did a good job… there was still too much competition (302 applicants for 42 funded projects in Round 4). 

So ask yourself… is it worthwhile to invest 50+ hours into the grant application process, knowing that your chances of success is around 10%?

Or wouldn’t you rather invest that time into your business… and let Grant Solutions handle the NRRHIP application (so your chances of ‘getting the money’ improve dramatically)?

NRRHIP Round 5 has recently opened and Grant Solutions is expecting a flood of enquires… particularly from those who were unsuccessful in the previous 4 rounds.

However, we’ll only be representing a maximum of 8 NRRHIP clients because:

1. We don’t want to spread ourselves too thin by working with too many clients
2. Enables to provide a personalised service (easier to do with 8 than with 20!)

  Sounds FAIR doesn't it? We think so and so did our 4 VERY satisfied NRRHIP clients.

Interested? These are the Next Steps...

To Your NRRHIP Success,

Ross Turetsky MBA, BCom, BInfosys
Managing Director, Grant Solutions

The National Rural and Remote Health Infrastructure Program (NRRHIP) aims to improve access to health services by providing funding to rural and remote communities where the lack of infrastructure is a barrier to the establishment of new, or the enhancement of existing health services.

The government will provide more than $46 million over the next four years to improve access to funding for essential health infrastructure, equipment and service planning for rural and remote communities.

NRRHIP Aims

The NRRHIP aims to:

• improve access to health services by providing funding to rural and remote communities to establish ‘walk-in/walk-out’ primary health care and medical facilities, where the lack of infrastructure is a barrier to the establishment of new, or the enhancement of existing health services;
• improve the viability of rural private hospitals; and
• increase the range of privately insurable health services available to rural and remote Australia.

NRRHIP Objectives

• support local rural and remote communities to develop flexible, long-term solutions for the provision of health services to meet the needs of the community;
• assist the establishment and/or refurbishment of primary health care and medical facilities in rural and remote communities;
• retain community access to rural private hospital services;
• support allied health professionals to establish, continue and/or enhance the delivery of privately insurable health services to rural and remote communities; and
• make it easier for rural and remote communities to recruit and retain the services of general practitioners (GPs) and allied health professionals.

Eligibility Criteria

Those eligible to apply for funding under the NRRHIP include:

• Local government organisations (shire councils, district councils, regional councils);
• Divisions of General Practice;
• Indigenous Community Councils;
• Private practitioners, where funding will be used for training facilities for medical students/registrars;
• Allied health professionals, who are providing privately insurable health services, and dentists in private practice; and
• Rural private hospitals including those eligible under the former Bush Nursing, Small Community and Regional Private Hospitals program

Under the NRRHIP an allied health professional may include:

•  Aboriginal Health and Mental Health Workers
•  Audiologists
•  Chiropractors
•  Chiropodists
•  Dietitians
•  Optometrists
•  Occupational Therapists
•  Orthotists/Prosthetists
•  Physiotherapists
•  Podiatrists
•  Psychologists
•  Registered nurses in specialist roles (including asthma management, diabetes education or mental health)
•  Speech pathologists

All Applicants must have an Australian Business Number (ABN) or an Australian Company Number (ACN) to apply for funding under the NRRHIP.

Fund Use

A total of $500,000 (GST exclusive) is available under the NRRHIP for eligible applicants seeking to provide services in rural and remote communities with populations of up to 20,000.

The amount for each funding stream of an application will be capped as follows:

• $500,000 (GST exclusive) for capital works / refurbishment;
• $250,000 (GST exclusive) for equipment; and/or
• $50,000 (GST exclusive) strategic service planning for rural private hospitals.

An applicant may apply for funding under more than one (1) funding stream, but the total of their application must not exceed $500,000 (GST exclusive).

Only one application per applicant will be accepted in each funding round.

Note: Applications from suburbs within larger townships will not be considered. The population of the township will be taken into consideration and not the population of the individual suburb.

Capital Works / Refurbishment may involve:

• the acquisition or establishment of new buildings and/or fit-out or renovations of existing buildings;
• establishment or refurbishment of facilities that are located on hospital or health campus grounds; and/or
• refurbishment of private practices to establish training facilities for medical students and/or medical registrars.

Equipment may involve:

• the purchase of equipment, including specialist medical/surgical equipment, technology upgrades such as computer hardware and software, patient information management systems, networking systems for medical personnel, telephone systems and videoconferencing equipment; and
• the provision of resources to pilot innovative approaches to the delivery of privately insurable health services.

Strategic Service Planning for rural private hospitals may involve:

• undertaking a feasibility study for a particular health service delivery model, including the introduction of privately insurable health services;
• undertaking a consultancy and community/stakeholder consultations to assist the development of appropriate health service delivery models to address community needs and to enhance the long term viability of the services;
• support for accreditation;
• examining current administrative and financial management arrangements in order to achieve economies of scale; and/or
• funding of planning activities, such as a project officer overseeing the capital works activity.

Ineligible Use of Funding

  Funding will not be provided for:

• acute care patient fees;
• aged care services and facilities;
• salaries for administrative staff who are undertaking normal duties;
• salaries for health professionals;
• strategic service planning other than rural private hospitals;
• conference attendance;
• consumables;
• rental costs for residential accommodation for health practitioners. However, consideration will be given to projects that incorporate self-contained flats within the health service to provide short-term accommodation for health professionals;
• recurrent costs, such as operating expenses, practice management, ongoing building and equipment maintenance and repair, rent, annual licensing fees, insurance and state and local government statutory charges such as rates (exceptions may be made on a case by case basis e.g. in the short-term for the establishment of a new service); and/or
• retrospective costs, i.e. expenses incurred before contractual arrangements with the Commonwealth are completed, or for projects already completed.

Assessment Criteria

Applications are assessed against a number of criteria including:

• Demonstrated understanding of the overarching aims and objectives of the NRRHIP;
• Suitability of the project plan;
• Relevant experience of the project team;
• Demonstrated value for money;
• Demonstrated capacity for sustainability;
• Management of potential or actual competing interests; and
• Risk analysis.

The assessment of applications will take approximately 6 months from September 30th, 2010.