23 August 2017 — Report

Consumer Priorities for a National Health Plan

Consumers Health Forum

Health systems need to maximise the effectiveness and efficiency of health services and long-term care; deliver seamless care across services and providers; they also need, fundamentally, to deliver improvements that matter to patients and their changing care needs. We share with our people and clinical leaders the view that “people-centred care” should better guide the course taken by health care in the future.

Ministerial Statement, The Next Generation of Health Reforms, OECD Health Ministerial Meeting, January 2017.       

Despite Australia’s favourable performance ranking overall when compared to other OECD countries, all too often the Consumers Health Forum of Australia (CHF) frequently hears from our members and networks that that the consumer experience of the Australian health system is one of disconnected and poorly coordinated care.  

Too often we only rely on measures of what health systems do, and how much they cost, rather than their effects on patients[1]. It is time to ask patients: what matters to you and for the system to respond accordingly.    

In modern health systems in developed economies we must take experience of care to be an equal measure of the performance of our health system and whether or not it is meeting the expectations of the community. Experience of care measures must have prominence within the ‘quadruple aims’ that are commonly accepted as measures of health system performance: enhancing patient experience; improving population health, lowering costs; and improving work life of health care providers.

This issues paper outlines a consumer perspective on the key design principles and elements which should be incorporated in the four pillars envisaged as part of a national health plan for Australia. It has been developed with the input of over 20 CHF members, representing a cross-section of our members, who expressed interest in attending a Consumer and Community Ministerial Roundtable in August 2017, the Mental Health Consumers and Carers Forum and other key informants such as representatives from Primary Health Networks (PHNs).  

We believe there are two essential priorities that we must start with:

  • Reforms to strengthen Australia’s primary health care system to make it more consumer-centred, prevention oriented, better integrated with hospital and social care and with more capacity to support transitions of care; and  
  • Greater investment in health systems research and arrangements to ensure the national research agenda is shaped by consumer and community priorities, that the findings stimulate improvements in services and our national medical and health research funds are spent wisely.

New approaches to consumer and community involvement in decision making at all levels in the system should be part of the process for developing a long term national health plan. Whether it is at the point of care or in policy design, when consumers are activated and supported to be involved, better experiences of care, quality of care and health outcomes result.     

CHF outlines reforms in seven key areas:

PRIMARY HEALTH CARE: to expand the focus on new models of care to include children, families and others at risk of chronic illness, and to enhance the role of Primary Health Networks.

PREVENTION:  pre-empt chronic diseases like obesity with effective public health measures

RETHINK FUNDING: to better link hospitals with coordinated community-based services

INTEGRATE MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES: with physical health, education and employment.

FLEXIBLE WORKFORCE:  incentives, education and services to put patients at centre of care

DIGITAL HEALTH FUTURE:  support efficient care, more patient choice and transparency.

PATIENT-ORIENTED RESEARCH: to ensure consumer say in setting research priorities and translating research into practical improvements to services. 

 

[1] OECD Health Ministers (2017) OECD Health Ministerial Statement – The next generation of health reforms: https://www.oecd.org/health/ministerial-statement-2017.pdf

26 July 2017 — Submission

Submission to MBS Review Taskforce - Urgent after-hours Primary Care services

Consumers Health Forum

CHF welcomes the opportunity to provide this submission in response to the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) Review Taskforce’s preliminary report on urgent after-hours primary care services funded through the MBS.  This submission elaborates on CHF’s responses provided via the online survey.

The Taskforce’s report acknowledges that after-hours GP services are essential services and highly valued by consumers.  While there has been an increase in the number of urgent after-hours services provided under the MBS, CHF notes that this increase on its own does not mean that these services were unjustified.  Other factors, such as better access to and availability of after-hours services, could explain the increase.  Moreover, an increase is not of itself surprising given the Government’s policy initiatives in recent decades to increase access to better organised after-hours services. Without these services many people, including parents and young families, the elderly including residents in aged care facilities, carers and people with terminal or chronic conditions, have faced great difficulty in getting the care they need.

24 July 2017 — Submission

Submission to the Review of Pharmacy of Remuneration and Regulation - Interim Report

Consumers Health Forum

The Interim Report correctly identifies the challenges of the current approach and makes a strong case for the need to change. This is not to say that the current system fails consumers or that it is a system in disarray, Indeed we know from the many surveys done by the Pharmacy Guild and others including our own 2015 survey, people value community pharmacy and see it as a vital element of our national health infrastructure. Consumers also have a high regard for pharmacists.

Overall CHF believes most of the options in the Interim Report, if put into place, would lead to a more consumer centred community pharmacy sector that is sustainable in the long run. If most of the options were implemented the community pharmacy sector would be better placed to deal with population shifts, ever increasing rates of technological change and workforce changes in pharmacy as well as the changing health system landscape with its greater emphasis on collaboration and integrated care. It would also help clarify and more centrally position pharmacy’s place as an integral part of the primary health team. We have identified a couple of areas where we think the report could have said more, particularly in the use of technology and addressing after hours services.

In this submission we have concentrated on those areas where we know consumers have concerns and those which we think are critical to move to a modern health system. We do not address all the options in detail in the body of the submission but Appendix 1 shows our positions on all of the options with some comments.

13 July 2017 — Presentations and Speeches

Webinar - Private Health Insurance and Pharmacy Remuneration & Regulation

Consumers Health Forum

Watch it here: https://youtu.be/wNeKJjIsvI0. This webinar covered current government policy and potential reforms in these two vital areas of the health system, and CHF's position in response.

15 June 2017 — Submission

Submission to Senate Inquiry into the Number of Women in Australia who have had Transvaginal Mesh Implants and Related Matters

Consumers Health Forum

It is becoming increasingly clear that there has been a major failure of the health system with regard to the use of transvaginal mesh to treat women. Many women have been left with permanent injuries and disabilities as a result of this device being implanted. 

We welcome this Senate Inquiry as a very public means of shining a light on what has happened, looking at ways women who have been injured can be assisted and putting in place changes to the processes to ensure similar events can be avoided. Consumers have the right to be able to feel confident that the medical devices that are implanted in their bodies are safe and effective and will improve the quality of their life. In the case of transvaginal mesh this has clearly not been the case for all women.  

It is of concern that we do not know how many women are impacted by this as we don’t know how many women had the mesh implanted and how many have had adverse effects but have not reported them.  The Health Issues Centre(HIC) in Victoria along with the other State and Territory Health Care Consumers organisations (HCOs) have collected stories and HIC ran an anonymous survey to try to get a better understanding  of the magnitude in terms of numbers affected and in terms of the injuries, disabilities and negative impact on women’s lives.  The response to this was quite overwhelming and HIC documents this in its submission to the Inquiry as do the State and Territory health care consumers organisations (HCOs) in theirs.

 It is worth making the point that this informal collection of data would not have been necessary if the processes of adverse reporting were improved and if the use of registries for implantable devices were more widely used . This is one of the key recommendations from the HCOs submission that we endorse.

CHF is indebted to them for undertaking this work and sharing it with us to assist with our submission.

1 June 2017 — Report

CHF Report Card: 2017

Consumers Health Forum

2016-17 has been a very exciting time for CHF. Read through our report card to find out more about our activities this year.

1 June 2017 — Report

Review of the Consumer Representative Program, Executive Summary and Recommendations

Consumers Health Forum

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.

18 May 2017 — Submission

Submission to ACSQHC on Resources to Support the National Safety and Quality in Health Service Standards (2nd ed)

Consumers Health Forum

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.
 

11 May 2017 — Presentations and Speeches

CHF's analysis of the Federal Budget 2017

Consumers Health Forum

Budget 2017 is one of restoration rather than reform, however overall we view the 2017 Budget as good news for the Australian health system.

29 April 2017 — Presentations and Speeches

Patient centred health care homes – realising the value

Consumers Health Forum, presented by Leanne Wells

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.

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