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HCQ’s Annual Forum 2022

“Inspirational, connected group of passionate people making a difference in healthcare makes the HCQ forum excel. It is fabulous to see expansion and growth in consumer engagement and partnership practise across the state. Well done.” (Forum attendee) It was wonderful...

eAlert: Consumer Conversations are back!

Consumer Conversations are back and they’re better than ever!

Consumer Conversations have made a welcome return this week and it was wonderful to see you all again on Zoom on Tuesday.

For this series, we have brought together our experienced and emerging consumer groups so the COVID-19 Community of Interest has joined up with the Health Consumers Queensland’s Consumer Advisory Group, the Health Consumers Collaborative of Queensland, the Primary Health Networks and the consumers who sit on Statewide Clinical Networks.

Conversations will now be held every fortnight rather than once a week.

These valuable sessions will continue to provide consumers the opportunity to share your lived experience on topical health issues with the group and with Queensland Health. In response to your helpful feedback, we’ve also added a short informative presentation at the beginning of each session to enable you to build your skills and knowledge around consumer engagement.

This week we explored: How to tell your story with impact. Many people become active as health consumers due to a significant experience with the health system. Telling the story of your healthcare journey effectively can be a powerful tool in your consumer kit.

We hope you enjoy this new format and please continue to share your feedback with us as the series continues.

If you’d like to join the Consumer Conversations, please register here. The next presentation will focus on some tips and strategies that help to communicate your message with impact.

Continue reading eAlert >

 

eAlert – Looking Back: How effective was Queensland’s COVID-19 response?

As we mentioned in last week’s eAlert, in the most recent Consumer Conversation we asked consumers for their reaction to the COVID-19 response from Queensland Health, and from us, Health Consumers Queensland. We were very pleased to hear that consumers were satisfied with Queensland Health’s response. Particularly compared to other states, consumers felt that Queensland Health has done very well to involve consumers to such a high degree, to listen and act on their views and concerns. Suggestions for improvement included greater attention to the needs of vulnerable groups, greater reach into the regions, and better communication and especially with culturally and linguistically diverse people and communities.

Consumers were overwhelmingly positive about the COVID-19 response from Health Consumers Queensland, with many feeling that the COVID-19 Community of Interest gave consumers the opportunity to have their voices heard, and gave them the information they needed to support themselves, their families and their communities. Importantly, consumers saw the influence they had on Queensland Health and were mindful of how unique that is in Australia.

 

Continue reading eAlert >

Snapshot of Qld’s COVID Response

By acting swiftly at the onset of COVID-19, Health Consumers Queensland was able to pivot our work to support consumers and the health system to collaborate on solutions to challenges not seen before. This early action has played a key role in ensuring a consumer-centred public health system response to COVID-19.

Through our work, Queensland Health has been able to hear from hundreds of Queenslanders with significant health needs and use that intelligence to form a more wide-reaching response than otherwise possible. You can read the big picture summary of our collaboration here.

Consumers routinely identified early key issues for the community, which we were able to feed through to the health system. This enabled the system to respond in the knowledge of consumer insights and expectations. You can read the full summary of all the themes covered by consumers during this time here.

You can also read the full summary of consumers’ reflections on the response to the pandemic, including how both Queensland Health and this organisation can continue to improve, in our latest Issues Paper.

Continue reading eAlert >

Looking Back: How effective has the Queensland COVID-19 response been?

We asked consumers for their reaction to the COVID-19 response from Queensland Health, and from us, Health Consumers Queensland. We were very pleased to hear that consumers were impressed with Queensland Health’s response. Particularly compared to other states, consumers felt that Queensland Health has done very well to involve consumers to such a high degree, to listen and act on their views and concerns. Suggestions for improvement included greater attention to the needs of vulnerable groups, great reach into the regions, and better communication.

Consumers were overwhelmingly positive about the COVID-19 response from Health Consumers Queensland, with many feeling that the COVID-19 Community of Interest gave consumers the opportunity to have their voices heard, and gave them the information they needed to support themselves, their families and their communities. More importantly, consumers saw the influence they had on Queensland Health and were mindful of how unique that is in Australia.

Read the Issues Paper >

Consumer Conversations are impetus for major new national research study

Health Consumers Queensland is partnering with Griffith University in a new national consumer-led research study looking at people’s attitudes and resulting behaviours to the government’s containment measures imposed from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. Take part in the survey now.

Dr Joan Carlini, who is leading the study, is a Lecturer in Marketing and Discipline Leader at Griffith Business School specialising in the intersection of business, government and society with a particular focus on consumer behaviour. She is also Chair of the Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service Consumer Advisory Group and a long-standing member of Health Consumers Queensland’s state-wide consumer network.

She said, “This is a unique study because it has been guided by Health Consumers Queensland’s Consumer Conversations. In fact, the story behind this research is as powerful as the research itself. I have been attending Health Consumers Queensland’s weekly COVID-19 Consumer Conversations since the start (wearing my non-expert health consumer hat) and I was struck by the diversity of views and experiences that were shared in this forum. They gave me an insight into what people from all walks of life were grappling with as restrictions tightened. I also realised that there was a huge gap between what was being said by health consumers and what I was hearing on mainstream media and academic forums I’ve also been attending.

The circumstances of this particular pandemic are unprecedented and this project offers researchers a rare opportunity to survey a vast cross-section of people across Australia and seek to understand a person’s individual circumstances and their sense of personal threat of COVID-19, and link it to their actual behaviours.”
 
Joan has assembled a research team which includes experts from infection diseases, social marketing, consumer behaviour and health consumer engagement to tackle this lack of access to ‘’hard to reach’’ voices which is a substantial concern for public health. It is hoped that the research will:

  • provide an explanatory framework for current individual behaviours and influencers
  •  identify groups of people who have found it difficult to comply with current restrictions thus enabling information, influencers and communications to more effectively target these audiences
  • provide policy makers with evidence for future decisions about reducing transmission during a pandemic.

Melissa Fox, CEO of Health Consumers Queensland said, “This project is a unique example of consumer-led and co-produced research.  Through our COVID-19 Consumer Conversations, the consumer input and lived experience expertise has laid the foundation for a new way of thinking about this pandemic. We’re delighted to partner with Joan and Griffith University to ensure that the most vulnerable members of our society are supported and protected as we all continue to respond to COVID-19, and plan the response to future pandemics.

This project is about finding patterns across society and its success depends on large numbers of people across all communities in Australia taking part.

Thank you for finding 20 minutes to fill in the survey and please do share it with your networks, family, friends and colleagues.”

Over 80 consumers partner with clinicians and other stakeholders to develop a Framework for Ethical Decision-Making

In March this year with the onset of COVID-19, the Queensland Clinical Senate and Queensland Clinical Networks, along with ethicists and other health professionals, began work on developing a framework that would advise care decisions if we were in pandemic and hospital resources and intensive care beds were impacted.

In the early stages of the work, Health Consumers Queensland was approached to support the development of the framework.  From that point on consumers were involved and consulted at every stage.  Engagement Advisor, Leonie Sanderson also consulted with current and past members of the Queensland Health Consumers Collaborative and HCQ Consumer Advisory Group on the framework values and principles whilst  Anne Curtis, Engagement Consultant, Special Projects, undertook rapid consultation with the broader community to hear what was important to them if we were in a pandemic situation. In all, more than 80 consumers and community members informed the framework.

The Queensland Ethical Decision-Making Framework is the result of a partnership between clinicians, consumers and other stakeholders, and was the first framework in Australia to be developed with consumers.  The framework and the supporting consumer resources are located on the Queensland Health website: https://www.health.qld.gov.au/clinical-practice/guidelines-procedures/novel-coronavirus-qld-clinicians/resources-for-clinicians

The three documents can be found under the section heading:

Statements, guidelines and directions from professional groups
Queensland ethical framework to guide clinical decision making in the COVID-19 pandemic (PDF 1269 kB)
Queensland ethical decision-making framework – Frequently asked questions (PDF 309 kB)
Shared decision making in Hospital Intensive Care Units during COVID-19 (PDF 2160 kB)

Six of the participating consumers have also worked on the development of consumer resources to ensure consumers and the community understand the purpose of the framework if it is required to be actioned. A shared decision-making infographic and Frequently Asked Questions now sit under the Framework on the Queensland Health website. 

We would like to acknowledge Lis Miller, Keren Pointon, Hamza Vayani, Sharon Boyce, Satrio Nindyo Istiko and Tanya Kretschmann, Helen Mees, Phil Carswell, Martin Chambers, Adele Witte, Lila Pratap, Jim Madden and Delphine Geia for their involvement with the development of the framework and the supporting consumer and clinician resources. 

Consumer themes through COVID-19

Health Consumers Queensland has been facilitating Consumer Conversations since 25 March to hear directly from consumers during COVID-19. Since then we have held 26 sessions with more than 500 consumers. The early conversations were during a lot of uncertainty as public health restrictions were being imposed and we simply asked “what is working, what isn’t and what are you concerned about?” As the curve began to flatten, we refined the conversations to focus on specific topics, based on what we were hearing from consumers. Consumers routinely identified early key issues for the community, which we were able to feed through to the health system. This enabled the system to respond in the knowledge of consumer insights and expectations.

Read the full summary >

 

A mental health care system for everyone

COVID-19 has shone a spotlight on mental health service provision in Queensland like never before, as people grapple with prolonged social isolation, fear and uncertainty, unemployment, restricted access to health care, home-schooling, withdrawal of support and services, and many reporting feeling forgotten by the government and its pandemic responses.

Currently Queensland Health provides mostly acute mental health care services but some consumers consider the scale of the mental health crisis facing the public health system is “another pandemic in itself”.

In every single one of the 24 Consumer conversations we have hosted since March, over 400 consumers have shared their concerns about people’s mental health at this time.

In this week’s Consumer Conversations we asked:

  • What have you learned about the current mental health system during COVID-19?
  • What do you think is working? 
  • What do you think could be improved?

They told us that a prescriptive, inflexible and reactive approach to mental health care is not working – or helping. Consumers want tailored, individualised care and communication and a system which prioritises and values preventative mental health care measures.

Continue reading eAlert >

A mental health system for everyone: Integrated, strong and tailored to our individual needs and circumstances

COVID-19 has shone a spotlight on mental health service provision in Queensland like never before, as people grapple with prolonged social isolation, fear and uncertainty, unemployment, restricted access to health care, home-schooling, withdrawal of support and services, with many reporting feeling forgotten by the government and its pandemic responses.

Currently Queensland Health provides mostly acute mental health care services but some consumers consider the scale of the mental health crisis facing the public health system is “another pandemic in itself”.

Consumers told us that a prescriptive, inflexible and reactive approach to mental health care is not working – or helping. They want tailored, individualised care and communication and a system which prioritises and values preventative mental health care measures.

Ultimately, their vision is for a strong, integrated mental health system for everyone which is well-funded, resourced and staffed by skilled and well-trained professionals.

Read the Issues Paper on the Mental Health System >

COVID-19 Testing: Straightforward, or difficult to access?

The message from Queensland Health is that we need more people tested for COVID-19, but consumer continue to be unclear about eligibility for testing, what testing entails, and what measures need to be taken either side of having a test. Many are reluctant to seek out testing if they are only showing mild symptoms, with the thought of isolation another disincentive.

While the Queensland Health COVID-19 site was given the thumbs-up by many as a good source of fact, inconsistencies between local and state information is compounding uncertainty on what to do. Most agreed that we should look to the tried and true strategies used during natural disasters, with regular centralized government messaging and local radio and news broadcasts nominated as the key vehicles for getting information out to the public.

Read the Issues Paper >

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