The Consumer Representative Program of the Consumers Health Forum of Australia (CHF) has been in place for many years. It has been the subject of several internal and external reviews and more recently, the Program has been reoriented to be more strategic and focused. At the same time, there has been significant reform in the health system which has implications for the role and voice of consumers. The emergence of consumer-centred care, place-based health and improved technology or ehealth services creates a new role for consumers as partners in health care planning, delivery and evaluation. Therefore, it is timely for CHF, the peak health consumer body in Australia, to review its Consumer Representative Program in the light of this emerging and changing health system and role of consumers and make decisions about the role and function of this Program going forward.
Review of the Consumer Representative Program, Executive Summary and Recommendations
Submission to ACSQHC on Resources to Support the National Safety and Quality in Health Service Standards (2nd ed)
CHF is pleased to provide the following comments on the four initial resources released by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) to support the National Safety and Quality in Health Service Standards (second edition). We have focused on whether the resources give sufficient and appropriate guidance, in an easy to understand way, to ensure a consistently high level of achievement against the Partnering with Consumers Standard in particular. However, given the nature of our comments, nearly all of them would apply to the respective resource overall, not just the chapter concerning the Partnering with Consumers Standard.
CHF's analysis of the Federal Budget 2017
Budget 2017 is one of restoration rather than reform, however overall we view the 2017 Budget as good news for the Australian health system.
Patient centred health care homes – realising the value
This presentation was delivered to the SE NSW Patient Centred Medical Home Symposium to give attendees insight into the overall structure of the proposed Health Care Homes model in Australia, and highlight where consumers fit.
Health Voices, Issue 20, April 2017
Many consumers are struggling to afford health insurance while confusion and uncertainty about its value to Australia continue to grow. This raises the question: Is health insurance worth it?
Read the latest issue here.
Submission to ACCC Report to the Senate on Private Health Insurance
CHF has consistently called for improved information provision to consumers as way of ensuring they understand their private health insurance policies and can make informed decisions. We regard the ACCC’s continued interest in this issue and the fact that the last two reports have been focused on information provision as critically important, and welcome the opportunity to contribute to the latest ACCC report to the Senate on Private Health Insurance.
Presentation to the Inaugural Symposium of the NHMRC Partnership Centre for Health System Sustainability
As a foundation partner and system lead investigator for the NHMRC Partnership Centre for Health System Sustainability, CEO Leanne Wells presented at the inaugural symposium. Involving consumers in research has a number of important issues to consider.
Submission to Senate Inquiry into Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2016 Measures No. 1) Bill 2016
We welcome this legislation coming forward as we believe many of the reforms covered by the review are overdue. This Bill set the groundwork for us to modernise the way we regulate medicines and medical devices and ensure that consumers can have the confidence to use them.
Whilst we do provide some comments on the key issues covered in the legislation we think it is important that they are looked at as a package. In particular we draw the Committee’s attention to the reforms to strengthen post-marketing activity which were a key theme in our Submission to the initial review. The move to improve adverse event reporting and have more post market monitoring and surveillance is critical to ensuring the integrity of the system. The reforms to this component of the regulators work cannot be overemphasised from a consumer confidence perspective and without this many of the other proposed reforms would not be acceptable.
Policy Webinar #2 - Current Areas of Australian Health Reform
Slides from our second Policy Webinar for 2017. This webinar was presented with Frank Quinlan from Mental Health Australia and Alexis Mohay from the National Rural Health Alliance. The full webinar can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/T5DO5ufXPhA
Policy Webinar #1 - Overview of the Australian Health System
Slides from a one hour webinar that gave a system level overview of the Australian health system. The webinar can be watched in full here: https://youtu.be/T5DO5ufXPhA