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About RDN - The Charity for Health Access
RDN - The Charity for Health Access
RDN – The Charity for Health Access, is a group charity, working to achieve health access for all. Through its social enterprises known as Health Access Enterprises, RDN partners with communities, professionals, industry and government to improve access to health and social care.
RDN’s Health Access Enterprises collaborate across a range of networks to build capacity, mobilise knowledge and deliver programs and products to improve health and wellbeing in under-resourced communities.
"RDN supports the World Health Organization’s goal of achieving a world in which all people have access to the full range of quality health services they need, when and where they need them, without financial hardship.” - RDN Strategic Plan 2025-2028
RDN's Health Access Enterprises:
Known as Health Access Enterprises, each of RDN’s social enterprises works to improve health and social care access in different but connected ways. RDN’s Health Access Enterprises are:
- Australian Centre for Health Access (ACHA) – launched in 2025
- RDN Health – launched in 2025
- Rural Health Pro – launched in 2020
- Rural Doctors Network* – founded in 1988
*The Rural Doctors Network was founded in 1988 and is the longest running enterprise of RDN – The Charity for Health Access. As the senior enterprise, it was previously used as an umbrella term for our organisation, however, today “Rural Doctors Network” is just one of four enterprises operating under the umbrella of “RDN - The Charity for Health Access”.
The RDN story
RDN traces its origins to 1988 and the vision of family doctors based in rural New South Wales, Australia. Today, RDN's social enterprises work across the Australian community and internationally, from metropolitan areas to the most remote regions, delivering specialised services that support and integrate health, aged care, disability, and community sectors, to enable socially accountable health access for under-resourced communities.
RDN Health Access Pillars
Health access goes beyond ‘care access’ to include support for people and communities to promote social determinants of health, and resolve, or withstand, present or future challenges that undermine the achievement of optimal health outcomes. RDN understands that enabling access to health and social care for community is a complex and multifaceted endeavour. It requires courage, vigilance, and agility to adapt to changing needs, and societal and technological evolution.
Built on RDN’s Framework for Social Change, RDN’s Health Access Pillars guide the operational response for local, regional and jurisdictional equity-driven health access transformation. The organisation of initiatives within the pillars enables RDN to systematically build and apply evidence-informed strategies that address the unique health access challenges faced by under-resourced communities. Within each pillar, RDN and its partners continue to conduct knowledge mobilisation activities, to extend the global body of evidence to support improved health access.
RDN's Health Access Pillars are:
- Community Solutions
- Workforce Solutions
- Workforce Support
- Health Systems
- Health Organisation Support
- Sector Advancement
