CHF supports the development of patient centred, holistic care. An element of this is the dismantling of the silos that currently exist between mental and physical health. These silos are evident at the point of care delivery but also at the system and policy setting level. We are strong advocates of the need to take a whole-of-person approach to care planning, coordination and delivery of services and to better bridge mainstream health care and specialised mental health services. This is particularly the case for primary and community based services pertaining to people with co-morbid mental and physical health problems.
Submission to the 5th National Mental Health Plan
Redesign of the Practice Incentives Program
We welcome the opportunity to provide feedback regarding the redesign of the Practice Incentives Program. CHF supports the promotion of positive health behaviours and commends attempts to increase the rates of this occurring. Consequently, we support the proposed re-design of the PIP as we believe the current model has a number of structural shortcomings.
Revalidation of Medical Practitioners
CHF strongly supports in-principle the need for the introduction of revalidation of medical practitioners, and its fundamental purpose of ensuring public safety in healthcare. Australian consumers must be able to have complete faith in the safety and quality of healthcare services. This is a zero tolerance requirement for consumers, as unsafe care is obviously completely unacceptable.
Joint statement with the National Health and Medical Research Council
The National Health and Medical Research Council and the Consumers Health Forum of Australia have released a revised joint statement reflecting the growing recognition of the place of consumers and community in health research.
The Statement on Consumer and Community Involvement in Health and Medical Research revises the initial joint statement released by the two organisations in 2002. The CEO of the NHMRC, Professor Anne Kelso AO, and the CEO of CHF, Leanne Wells, say that in recent years the importance of consumer and community involvement in research has become more widely recognised.
Health Voices, Issue 19, November 2016
Big changes lie ahead for health care in Australia. Workforce roles are in flux while care gets more individually focused. This edition of Health Voicesexplores the question: Health consumers and workforce – are we engaged?
Treating Each Other With Respect: Philosophy, Goals, & Experience Wheels
Presented at the Mayo Healthcare and Social Media Summit 2016 in Melbourne, this presentation is about how a solid bedrock of philosophy behind an organisation’s communications and a clear understanding of goals make treating each other with respect simple, and to show you how our philosophy & goals at CHF led to the creation of the Real People, Real Data toolkit, and it’s centrepiece, the Experience Wheel.
The Patient Centred Health Workforce
The health sector, both in Australia and internationally is increasingly being pushed to do more with less, provide for disparate populations and meet the increasingly complex needs of people who use our health systems. While the practice of patient centered care has been shown to benefit the health system on a range of levels, from the individual patient to the health system at a macro level, the degree to which this has been implemented by health professions remains unclear.
In an attempt to change this CHF undertook a survey in August 2016 of 55 health workforce professional organizations. Three areas were investigated:
- Attitudes toward and understanding of patients as partners in care
- Policies, practices and procedures of the organizations regarding patients as partners in care
- Organizations views of wider health system and workforce reforms
Submission to PC Inquiry into Human Services
INTRODUCING COMPETITION AND INFORMED USER CHOICE INTO HUMAN SERVICES: IDENTIFYING SECTORS FOR REFORM
Whilst CHF acknowledges that there is scope for improved efficiency in the delivery of health services we do not think that this preliminary findings report makes a convincing case for increasing competition and contestability delivering those efficiencies without detriment to consumers. Some of the benefits identified for consumers could and should be achieved by reforms within the existing market arrangements. After these have been implemented it would then be useful to revisit all three areas and see if there is still scope for additional benefits from increased competition.
Balancing innovation and evidence in self-management and self care - a consumer perspective
Leanne Wells spoke at the 2016 Australian Self Medication Industry Conference on the topic of "Balancing innovation and evidence in self-management and self-care - a consumer perspective".
Submission to the RACGP 5th Edition Standards Patient Guide
CHF welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback of the draft 5th edition Standards for General Practice Patient Feedback guide. We are pleased with the current state of the patient feedback guide and feel that the majority of the work in it respects consumers and will help practices best serve them. The suggestions provided in this submission will help practices communicate clearly and ethically to consumers about the need to collect data and the practices by which it is done.