Consumer engagement in Victoria and NSW: Lessons learned during COVID-19
Here in Queensland, Health Consumers Queensland is uniquely positioned to amplify the consumer voice. We are fortunate to work with a Government, health department and health services that welcome consumer engagement and values the consumer voice. Importantly, this commitment is matched by action, not just lip service, with consumer/HCQ participation facilitated at almost every level of decision making in health, and our organization being funded to pivot our work to support the response to COVID-19.
We invited the CEOs of our equivalent state health consumer peaks, Danny Vadasz, CEO of Health Issues Centre in Victoria and Anthony Brown from Health Consumers NSW to join a conversation with our CEO Melissa Fox, to share their perspectives on their Government and Health Departments’ engagement with consumers during COVID-19 at our regular Consumer Conversation session on Monday, 10 August 2020.
The views shared by Danny and Anthony made for “a sobering session” and prompted key questions around:
- Valuing consumer engagement at every level.
- Recognising that a consumer’s lived experience IS data.
- How to be responsive to communities.
Consumer engagement in Victoria and NSW during COVID-19: Lessons learned
Encouraging COVID-19 testing throughout Queensland
Testing remains one of Queensland’s best defences against a sustained outbreak of COVID19. A Consumer Conversation on Tuesday 28 July 2020 focused on the top barriers to testing, how the process can be made easier and what the key messages are that would motivate people to get a COVID-19 test.
Fear, uncertainty, confusion, mis-interpretation of information and complacency are currently the over-arching barriers to testing across the state. Consumers are looking for a clear and unambiguous testing pathway which is convenient, supportive, nuanced and needs-focused.
eAlert: Communicating effectively with residents and families
Following the lockdown of residential aged care facilities across South Brisbane and in the Moreton Bay region last week, Health Consumers Queensland and a consortium of six NGOs (including COTA Queensland, Queenslanders with Disability Network, ADA Australia, Palliative Care Queensland and CarersQLD) co-designed a single checklist and provided a series of resources to enable residential care facilities to communicate effectively with residents and families during an outbreak.
As part of this work, Jo Smethurst facilitated a training session to help facility managers understand the importance of communicating well when/if COVID-19 impacts their facility, and develop a comprehensive communications plan to enable them to be responsive to the individual needs of residents and families. This training session was part of a week-long training series led by the Office of the Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer in Queensland Health.