Consumer consultation on national health service standards

The Health Care Consumers’ Association Inc and the

Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care invite you to a consumer consultation on the

National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards

The Commission is seeking comment on the draft National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards to:

•     Ensure the standards address consumer expectations for safe and high quality services.
•     Refine the standards and ensure they are meaningful for health services, practitioners implementing safety and quality systems as well as accreditation agencies and surveyors using the standards to assess compliance.
•     Standardise and streamline processes where possible.

Five Standards were released for consultation in November 2009. The Commission is now seeking comment on the additional five draft Standards before they are piloted in health services and forwarded to Health Ministers for consideration in 2011.

The additional five Standards are:

    Partnering for Consumer Engagement which creates a consumer centred health system by including consumers in the design and delivery of quality health care.

    Blood and Blood Product Safety which sets the standard to ensure that the patients who receive blood and blood products are safe.

    Prevention and Management of Pressure Ulcers which specifies the expected standard to prevent patients developing pressure ulcers and best practice management when pressure ulcers occur.

    Recognising and Responding to Clinical Deterioration in Acute Health Care which describes the systems required by health services responding to patients when their clinical condition deteriorates.

    Preventing Falls and Harm from Falls which describes the standards for reducing the incidence of patient falls in health service organisations.

The draft standards are available online (pdf 714kb).

Date:    Friday 1 October 2010

Time:   10.00am - 3.00pm

Where: Southern Cross Club, woden

Places are limited and RSVP is essential.  Please contact the HCCA office on 02 6230 7800 if you are interested in attending.

Interested in Consumer Participation in the Health System?

 
HCCA runs free training  for people interested in becoming consumer representatives.

Dates:  Thursday, September 16, 2010 and
            Thursday, September 23, 2010
 Time:    9:30am-2:30pm at
Where: The HCCA Offices, 10 Maitland St Hackett

Contact the office for more information.

Would you like to see the nurse?

 Would you be happy to see a nurse instead of a doctor for some of your medical care? Health Care Consumer’s Association, in partnership with the ANU, is asking just that question through an online Nurse Survey being conducted throughout June.

ACT Health estimates that Canberra needs another 74 GPs to satisfy our needs. This means that many Canberrans are not able to see a doctor when they need medical treatment. More than half of the respondents to HCCA’s ACT GP Snapshot Survey, conducted in 2009, had to wait for more than a day to see a doctor for an urgent matter. With this in mind the ACT Government have developed the newly opened Walk in Centre at the Canberra Hospital. This is entirely staffed by nurses. There are nurses working in general practices as well and there are going to be more.

The Federal Government announced in the budget that they will pour $393.3 million into general practices in Australia to employ practice nurses to deliver primary health care. That’s enormous. Yet, we don’t know how consumers feel about this. Are they, or would they be, happy to see a nurse for medical treatment instead of a doctor at their local general practice? That’s what we are trying to find out through our survey. It may be that consumers feel that seeing a nurse is second best, maybe they think it’s a great thing and there should be more of it. We just don’t know. No-one has ever asked the question. Until now.

Last year HCCA conducted a survey which took a snapshot of General Practices in the ACT and it revealed that women with children under 5 and the over 65’s were more likely to see a nurse working in a general practice. HCCA is hoping that these groups in particular will participate in this new survey though it is open to everyone living in and near the ACT.

“We want to flesh out the picture and find out whether people think seeing a nurse instead of a doctor is a good choice in some situations.”

Do the Nurse Survey now. A link can be found at http://www.hcca.org.au/

Darlene Cox was interviewed by Lousie Maher about the survey on the local ABC radio.  Part of the interview can be found on the ABC website.

Consumer information session on e-health

How is consumer feedback used to improve health services in the ACT?

HCCA Health Issues Group:

Are you interested in how consumer feedback is used in the ACT to improve health services?  are you interested in how consumers can provide feedback? 

Thursday June 17 2010, 12.00 –2.00 at the HCCA offices in Hackett

A light lunch will be served at the beginning of the event.  Please contact the office if you can join us.

At this forum we will have two speakers, and time for your questions on:

The work of the Health Services Commissioner from the ACT Human Rights Commission.
Mary Durkin, the Health Services Commissioner will come and talk about the role of office in dealing with complaints about health services and health service providers. Her presentation will cover the types of matters that the Commissioner can investigate, the process for handling complaints, the outcomes that might be achieved, and how complaints can be used to inform system improvements.

and

The work of the Consumer Engagement Team in ACT Health
Robyn Jensen is the team leader for the Consumer Engagement Team. She will speak about:
• the team’s role in managing consumer feedback across ACT Health,
• working with HCCA to provide consumer representatives on ACT Health committees,
• and other ways that they assist ACT Health to engage with consumers.

Note: Out of respect for the access needs of people with chemical sensitivities and people experiencing breathing related allergies and illness, please avoid using perfume, aftershave, essential oils or other highly fragranced products when attending this event.