What do we do?

Supporting Queensland consumers and health services to partner for better health outcomes.
Our goal: Consumers and community partnering with the health system for consumer-centred health care for all Queenslanders. We are committed to a health system which delivers quality and safe health services and values the voice of consumers in how health services are designed and delivered.

How do we do that?

Our focus is on partnerships between health consumers and health services that influence and lead improvements for better health delivery for all Queenslanders. We do this through:

  • Our Queensland-wide network
  • Tailored training and skills development programs for consumers and health staff
  • Supporting opportunities for consumer representation at all levels of the health system
  • Providing strategic advice to health organisation staff and health consumer representatives

What are we not able to assist with?

Health Consumers Queensland works to improve health care deliver at a systems level. Unfortunately, we are not able to assist with individual complaints or one-on-one advocacy. However, the links on our Unhappy with your healthcare? page may help you if you are looking for support with a problem with a health service.

Our impact

How does Health Consumers Queensland benefit the health system?

  • Skilled consumer representation to advocate for more integrated care and better health outcomes
  • Health service staff trained in stakeholder engagement and skilled in involving consumers
  • Linking the lived experience of the health system with the decision-making process
  • Early warning about issues that may be missed within the health system
  • Experiences of individuals are translated into meaningful feedback for health administrators
  • Clinicians don’t want to make decisions without the legitimacy of the consumer experience
  • Consumers are a visible reminder of who health services are for

Without Health Consumers Queensland we could see

  • Gaps in service overlooked and unremedied
  • Blind spots that can only be seen by those with lived experience not detected until too late
  • Poorer health outcomes and poor experiences of care
  • Consumer voices unrepresented and unheard by clinicians and decision makers leading to an unresponsive health system

What guides our work?

Our guiding principles:

Health Consumers Queensland is committed to:

  • Influencing individual and system change in health services through ensuring the consumer perspective is central in the planning, design, delivery, monitoring and evaluation at all levels.
  • Partnerships and collaboration with organisations, service providers and stakeholders.
  • Quality, safe, affordable, timely and accessible services that deliver the right care, at the right time and the right place.

Diversity

All people have a right to affordable and accessible health services that meet all of their physical, social, emotional and cultural preferences.

Health Consumers Queensland focus on increasing the voices of vulnerable population groups and assist them to understand how they can have a voice in developing health services. With access and equity in mind, we partner with people and organisations with a focus on the following:

  • Culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD)
  • Physical and intellectual disability
  • Lived mental health experience
  • Socially and geographically isolated
  • Socioeconomically disadvantaged