Response to Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care’s Consultation on Consumer Engagement Strategies

The Australian Health and Quality Commission have released a Background Paper: Development of a Consumer Engagement Strategy for the Commission. The paper raised the issue of goals for consumer engagement by the Commission. PIAC submits that consumers are engaged at various stages of their health care from initially accessing a health service, through their care and treatment, to after their health care where they may wish to ask questions or complain. PIAC submits that strategies should be adopted to enhance consumer participation and engagement through all stages of a consumer’s health care. Strategies should be adopted to promote participation and engagement by consumers from disadvantaged groups and to overcome barriers to their engagement in health care decisions. The submission highlights the particular barriers to participation and engagement in decisions about their health care that are experienced by people diagnosed with a mental illness, and proposes some strategies to overcome these barriers.The submission also addresses the issue of direct consumer engagement in the Commission’s work. The submission emphasises the importance of involving people from disadvantaged groups in the Commission’s consumer engagement processes and identifies strategies that the Commission could adopt to promote engagement with consumers from disadvantaged groups and consumers from geographically remote areas in these processes.