Annual General Meeting and Planning Workshop

On Tuesday, 10 November HCCA held our Annual General Meeting at the Southern Cross Club, Woden. Adele Stevens, President, reflected on the achievements of the past year:

The past year has been a very successful one for Health Care Consumers’ Association (HCCA) and I have been proud to hold the position of President and work with such a committed and enthusiastic group of health consumers. Over the year, the profile of HCCA has been significantly raised in the community following the hard work of both staff and members on a range of issues. It is not possible in this report to list all the areas where we have made a significant contribution with consumer participation but I would just like to highlight two: first, the GP Taskforce and, second, the Capital Asset Development Program.

Our concerns about the GP shortage were raised with the closure of a GP Practice in Wanniassa. The HCCA Blog detailed our action and response at that time and, with media interest, provided a way for the community to get involved in this issue. Following growing community concern, the ACT Minister for Health set up the GP Taskforce to investigate and make recommendations on ways to improve primary health care services in the ACT. HCCA was a significant contributor to the Task force deliberations. Primary health care was a big issue in the last year and will continue to be an area of major concern for HCCA with our interest and involvement in nurse led walk in clinics and the development of Enhanced Primary Health Care centres in the ACT.

The development of the Capital Asset Development Program (CAPD) following the ACT government’s commitment to spend $1 billion dollars in improving health services over the next 10 years has resulted in a major input from HCCA to this program of capital development. Here are now nine consumer representatives involved with the CAPD program and HCCA has been funded to provide a part time staff member to support these consumer representatives. The exciting program is just beginning and HCCA is pleased with the opportunities for consumer participation provided by the able CAPD team led by Megan Cahill at ACT Health. As the program grows, there will be lots more opportunities for consumer participation in the planning of future ACT health services.

The HCCA Executive Committee has benefited from the contribution of Jude Manning, Chair of our Governance Committee. This year, we endorsed a Governance Framework , and Risk Management Framework. These documents provide useful guidance to the Executive Committee in ensuring the strategic objectives of HCCA are met.

In addition, the HCCA Constitution was revised – a major task long overdue. My sincere thanks to the Working Party who laboured on this over the last year. I am very pleased that we can present the results of that work later in this meeting for your consideration.

Adele's full report in in the Annual Report.

Congratulations to the Executive Committee for 2009 - 2010

President: Adele Stevens

Vice President: Marion Reilly

Secretary: Russell McGowan

Treasurer: Bev McConnell

Committee members Dalane Drexler, Angela Wallace and David Lovegrove

After the formal meeting members participated in a workshop reflecting on the purpose of HCCA, reasons for involvement and ideas for renewal and growth. This is in the process of being written up and will be posted soon.

Building Relationships - broadening our representation

In August HCCA was delighted to conduct training for the Canberra Multicultural Community Forum. The training sessions focused on the health rights, consumer participation and how consumers and advocates can participate in decision making in the ACT health system.
The workshops were valuable and HCCA staff gained important insights from the CMCF participants which we will use to frame responses to health policy. we would like to thank CMCF for their time, enthusiasm and willingness to build a relationship with HCCA.


HCCA President, Dr Adele Stevens, and Vice President, Marion Reilly, attended the first session and shared their experiences and insights as consumer representatives and being involved in an advocacy organisation. Russell McGowan, HCCA Secretary, attended the second session and we engaged in a lively discussion on health reform.

One thing HCCA does for all our training sessions ask consumers what they would like to change about the health system. The responses to this question are below.

What would you like to change about the health system?

Consumer Feedback
Increased representation from inclusive community
Better consultation process with all stakeholders
More efficient uses of resources from a diverse workforce
Overcome the top HEAVY administration in hospitals

Workforce
Better understanding by health professionals about cultural attitudes to health and their expectations for behaviour of clients
Doctors in hospitals who know as much as nurses about wound recovery etc. (they are often unaware of the long term effects of their treatment and they don’t know their patients.

Research
More funding for research into areas affecting consumers such as gluten intolerance

Home and Improve Aged Care support service – have community representative on the HACC committee. Not just restricted to service providers.
Better primary health care – subsidised fees for gym membership?

Navigating the System
More accessible information about services that are available especially for aged people.
More information about assistance for elderly people to let them stay in their own homes

Access
Access to dentists for all
Valet parking for Canberra Hospital!
Better transport to parking at Canberra Hospital
Reduce waiting at Emergency Department

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HCCA Submission to the GP Task Force

HCCA has made a submission to the GP Task Force. It is available online (290 kb Pdf)

Our community needs primary health care that is accessible, clinically and culturally appropriate, timely and affordable. We based our submission on our research and analysis of consumer experiences and expectations of general practice in the ACT.

We would like thank the hundreds of people who took the time to complete the GP Snapshot online survey and share their experiences and expectations of general practice in the ACT. There is a strong level of interest in the community about access to quality health services.

We would also like to thank the many people in our membership and wider networks who shared their experiences and perspectives with us.

A quick summary:

In our consultations we found that consumers’ experiences of primary health care were varied. Some consumers are very well placed with a regular GP who they can see when the need arises. Other consumers reported that the inadequate supply of GPs presents them with significant difficulties in accessing satisfactory care, including for urgent appointments, referrals, scripts or renewals of prescriptions.

Consumers also reported a level of disruption to their health care with the closure of general practices and move to larger corporate medical centres. The impact of closures of practices on consumers is amplified as many existing GP practices have closed their books to new patients.

One of the strategies consumers have developed to deal with the GP shortage is to have a number of general practices they access. A respondent to the GP Snapshot 2009 said that they had “2-3 GPs because we cannot always get to see the same GP due to difficulties getting an appointment” (Respondent 130).

The extension of “corporate” GP practices with a strong profit emphasis is a cause of dissatisfaction for many health consumers in the ACT; reasons given are reduced geographic access, especially if relying on public transport, no doctor of choice and a ‘production line’ consultation process – a particular concern for consumers with chronic and complex conditions.

The majority (81.2%) of respondents have a regular GP. Respondents were asked to provide reasons for not having a GP. The main reasons given for not having a GP were that the consumers can never get into their preferred GP (17.5%) and that GP Clinics are not taking new patients (16.7%).

The GP Snapshot 2009 was designed to capture a snapshot consumer experiences and expectations of general practice in the ACT.

The survey was developed based on discussions with consumer representatives and members of HCCA. Secretariat to the GP Task Force had seen a draft of the survey before publication. The survey was piloted with a group of HCCA members. It included issues such as whether consumers have regular GPs, waiting times, the quality of the interaction and demographic material and included a number of questions that the GP Task Force had asked practicing GPs.

The survey ran from 15 June - 3 July 2009 and was publicised through HCCA members and networks, and media coverage in The Canberra Times, ABC Canberra and 2CC. There were 635 responses. We think that the number of responses demonstrated a strong interest in the community around this issue.

Our preliminary analysis is included throughout the submission to the GP Task Force. A summary of findings is available online (151kb Pdf). HCCA will continue to analyse the results of the survey and post this to the HCCA blog over time.

Workshop: What do consumers need to effectively self-manage chronic conditions?

How patients and health professionals can learn from each other and share information about managing and self managing chronic conditions is one of the key areas of investigation by a collaborative research partnership that has recently been formed in the ACT. This research partnership is between the University of New South Wales, ANU College of Medicine, ACT Health and the ACT Division of General Practice.

While we know that self- management is important for those with chronic conditions, what information and support is needed to make it easier for both patients and health professionals to work together?

Darlene Cox, Executive Director of the Health Care Consumers Association says, “each person has their own unique experience of their condition and illness, which they manage on a daily basis”. But what would make this easier?

What works, what doesn’t work is the topic for conversation that Health Care Consumers' Association and the ACT Division of General Practice would like find out from people in the ACT at a seminar on August 11th. “This is an exciting opportunity for us to meet and hear from people in the ACT and share ideas and experiences of how they manage their chronic conditions”, she said.

To find out more about this seminar or to book a place, contact Health Care Consumers’ Association on ph 6290 1660.

Join HCCA on Facebook

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HCCA has a Facebook page.

Become a fan.

Consumer Issues on the Agenda in the ACT

Thank you to the members who took the opportunity to listen to and ask questions of the candidates in the upcoming ACT Election. The event was well attended and a great success from our perspective.

Our election forum brought good news for consumers as all candidates supported a number of the issues HCCA has identified as critical.

All candidates spoke of the need to plan and prepare for our ageing health population. This starts in 2016 and peaks in 2032 when a quarter of our community will be over 65. There was support for the program of infrastructure renewal that is currently underway of Canberra hospital, refurbishment of existing community health centres and building a new facility in Gungahlin. HCCA is advocating for development of community based health services rather than locking up all resources in a hospital-centric system. We want a health system that enables timely access to services in the most appropriate setting, which is not always in hospitals.

All candidates support expanding roles of allied health professionals and nurses however candidates vary in their degree of understanding of what these roles are and how they will contribute to reshaping our health system. We are very keen to see development of roles. There are some concerns expressed by doctors groups around the safety of nurses taking on more primary care roles. We do not consider this to be a barrier as with any medical professional there needs to be checks and balances in place to assure the community the health professionals are competent and working within their defined scope of practice. This includes the recognition of the value of multidisciplinary teams; the new health workforce will not have room for people who are not team players.

The candidates were all supportive of e-health initiatives including electronic health records, electronic prescribing, digital imaging, and electronic discharge summaries.

Most questions were for the Minister and included:

• Use of inert materials in new buildings and refurbishment
• palliative care services at the hospice and community
• Need for health interpreters to work across health and aged careto assist with translation
  
• How to safeguard patient information in electronic health records
• access to dental care and the role of dental hygienists
• more information on the Cancer Centre of excellence
• continuity of care for all maternity services, rather than just the Community Midwifery Program.

ACT Election Health Forum

We are holding a ACT Election Forum for the Canberra Community on health issues on Wednesday 24 September 2008.

There will be an opportunity to have members of the Assembly and candidates answer your questions about our health system.

We encourage you send us your questions in advance so we can ensure these issues are raised in the forum.

Tribute to Phillip Gleeson

It is with sadness that I write this post on the death of Phillip Gleeson, one of our most experienced and respected consumer representatives.

Philip was a longstanding member of the Health Care Consumers’ Association of the ACT. He was an amazing person with a wonderful sense of humour and strong respect for others. He made a valuable contribution to facilities for people with MS in the ACT as well as to the advancement of health care services to consumers more generally.

Russell McGowan commented that

Phillip contributed significantly to the health system’s understanding of the value of consumer perspective in dealing with intractable problems.

Phillip was a gifted narrator and creative writer, and at a time when there is consideration of a national compact between government and the community sector, it is worth noting his contribution to the shaping of the Social Compact in the ACT.

We have been fortunate to have had Philip as our friend and colleague, and our thoughts are with Prue, Hannah and his extended family as they struggle to cope with this tragic loss.

Prue worked with us for many years and is held in very high regard by members and staff of HCCA . I have been contacted by many members expressing their sadness at Phillip's death and sharing their support for Prue at this time.

Phillip is a great loss to the consumer movement and to our community.

The positive aspects of blogging

This blog has been set up for the purpose of sharing information and gaining views and perspectives from our membership and networks. It is an experiment in how community engagement can use new information technologies to strengthen our contribution to public policy.

It has been set up to help people to:

• be involved in the activities of HCCA,
• make comments on health policies up for review and
• raise any issues with HCCA staff

I received an email from one of our members who is very happy for me to post her comments. Her message identifies some of the positive aspects of setting up and contributing to a blog.

What a great initiative Darlene! Most exciting for me is the potential you have now opened up for HCCA to capture the voices/experiences of other people in the community, who have otherwise been constrained from participating in the activities of HCCA [eg conflicting paid working hours or other life commitments which physically prevent some people from attending on site activities]. I shall be watching with great interest - thank you!

Cheers all,

Catherine