Involving consumers leads to better cancer care
Information for CEOs, executives and service managers
Cancer Australia
(Cancer Australia logo)
Consumers can be involved in all sorts of ways
Consumers can be involved in:
- surveys, focus groups, committees,
- consultations, feedback and
- patient-centred approaches
- service planning, design and delivery
- education, information and health literacy
- policy development and priority setting
- clinical governance.
Engaging consumers fosters a responsive organisation
Working with consumers involves:
- integrating consumer involvement into organisational leadership, governance
and activities
- committing staff resources to lead consumer engagement
- embedding consumer involvement into systems, policies and processes
- ongoing consumer involvement that promotes and learns from consumer advice, input and experience.
The Toolkit can help you to begin or continue the process of involving consumers.
Health care organisations benefit from involving consumers
Increasingly, people affected by cancer and the broader community want to be active participants in decision making about their health and in shaping health services.
There is evidence that involving consumers leads to improved quality and safety and improved health outcomes.
Cancer Australia has developed web-based practical tools to help everyone involved in health care to work together with consumers to improve cancer care. The Consumer Involvement Toolkit is available at consumerinvolvement.canceraustralia.gov.au
‘If you don’t involve consumers, you don’t understand your business. Whatever type of business it is, it’s got to have relevance to the people who will be the end users. I think there’s a real opportunity to engage consumers into building a system that is much more responsive to everyone’s needs.’
Prof Jim Bishop, Executive Director
Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre
‘Consumers have certainly educated me over the last 20 years that they don’t want to be consulted at the last minute; they want to be in from the beginning. That’s good because it means that you formulate better policies and programs.’
Assoc Prof Rosemary Knight, Principal Advisor
Department of Health and Ageing
Involving consumers leads to better cancer care
The leadership and decision-making of CEOs, executives and service managers are vital to the design, implementation and success of consumer involvement initiatives in your organisation.
Consumer involvement can help to deliver:
- improved quality, safety and outcomes
- accountability and transparency
- a trusted health service that is more responsive to consumer needs and issues
- new sources of feedback and solutions
- greater job satisfaction for your staff.
Partnering with consumers is an essential requirement of accreditation, and designing and shaping quality services.
Consumers benefit from being involved in health care
Consumer involvement can help to deliver:
- a better patient experience
- empowered consumers
- opportunities for consumers to influence outcomes
- skills, knowledge and satisfaction for consumers from contributing to change
- peer support and networks for consumers.
The Consumer Involvement Toolkit gives you the tools to effectively involve consumers. There are four key elements essential for effective consumer involvement in health care – committed organisations, capable consumers, inclusive groups and shared focus. The website leads you, step by step, to achieve each of these.
Involving consumers leads to better cancer care
Evidence shows that working with consumers – people affected by cancer – results in better outcomes and improves the quality and safety of our health care organisations and research.
Get involved today.
Find out more about how you can be involved consumerinvolvement.canceraustralia.gov.au