CAC Strategies

Community Advisory Committee of the Southern Health Board

Consumer & Community Participation in Health

Evidence suggests that community participation can improve the planning of health services, leading to increases in the quality, safety and accessibility of health care systems. ¹

Benefits of Consumer and Community Participation²

For health services:

Higher quality of services and projects
Higher profile for health services in the community
Gives staff new insights into how people perceive aspects of their care
Enables organisations to set priorities about areas of improvement that matter to consumers and the community
Provides an opportunity for joint problem solving
Greater accountability for public funds
Potential for decreasing expenditure
Likely to lead to fewer complaints and litigation
Greater credibility when lobbying Government

For consumers/community representatives:

Increased control over their health status and disease management
Improved health outcomes
Increased understanding of health issues and health services
Greater sense of influence over the health services they use
Opportunity to have positive input to local health activities

Consumer and Community Participation Strategies

The following is a table³ that provides an overview of methods of consumer and community participation. A more extensive list and detailed information on specific strategies is available from the Executive Officer, Community Advisory Committee, who can be contacted on 9709 7174.

¹ Victorian Government Department of Human Services. (2001). Guidelines for Community Advisory Committees Project Report. Melbourne: Victorian Government Publishing Service.
² National Resource Centre for Consumer Participation in Health. (2001). Fact Sheet No. 1: An introduction to consumer participation. Melbourne: Author.
³ Adapted from Consumer Focus Collaboration. 2000). Improving health services through consumer participation: a resource guide for organisations. Canberra: Brown & Wilson Integrated Publishing Services.

An overview of methods of consumer and community participation

Strategy	Key Attributes
Publications & displays	Provides information on how consumers/community members can participate.
Information to consumers about service & treatment options	Written and oral information to consumers presented in an accessible and understandable way explaining treatment choices and likely outcomes, with pathways for asking, and getting answers to, questions.
Evaluation	Evaluation of services is an essential component of consumer participation. Strategies such as surveys, focus groups and interviews are useful for providing feedback for evaluating health care service activity.
Project Groups	Project groups are established to advise on specific issues and/or to guide a project. They are usually time limited. Many of the issues that project groups are set up to address will benefit greatly from dialogue with consumers &/or community representatives.
Surveys	Surveys collect information by means of questionaries either administered by an interviewer face-to-face or by telephone, or through the mail. Surveys results can be used in planning, needs assessment, priority setting and evaluation.
In-depth consumer interviews	Extended, semi-structured face-to-face interviews provide rich information from selected consumers. In-depth interviews are particularly useful as a follow-up to surveys to explore particular issues and/or specific population groups.
Focus Groups	A semi-structured group interview with 6-8 people for 30 minutes to 2 hours. Interactions among participants can help explore issues rapidly and in-depth. Focus groups are used for information collection focused on a specific issues.
Submissions	Oral and written presentation of views. Can attract consumers and community representatives who are organised and in a position to put in a submission, but may exclude less articulate/literate, NESB and/or socially disadvantaged consumers and community members.
Delphi technique	Formal process using a series of mailed surveys to selected individuals. Used for building consensus across consumers and community members with conflicting views. Maybe useful for particular groups of stakeholders on specific contentious issues, but relies on good literacy skills.
Nominal group technique	Small group process for clarifying priorities. May be useful for consumer involvement in identifying priority issues, allocating scarce resources. However, does not allow for much in-depth exploration of the issues.
Suggestion boxes	Easy to implement, but may be limited in obtaining useful feedback. May attract negative and unhelpful comment and is limited to those with time and literacy skills. Suggestion boxes should be used in conjunction with other strategies.
Workshops	Working meeting usually of 8-12 consumers and/or community representatives, to share information and develop a shared approach to a specific issue. Participants usually have been selected on the basis of particular skill, knowledge or experience. Requires informed participants.
Consumer consultants	Person employed to consult with consumers and advocate on their behalf for service improvement.
Search conferences	Meeting of 30-50 people where a wide range of views are canvassed. Investigates a subject/issue in a planned manner by asking a specific question. May use discussion paper as starter.
Public inquiries & hearings	Formally set terms of reference. Receives public submissions, oral & written. Formal and possibly intimidating; likely to exclude views of socially disadvantaged consumers and community members.
Discussion papers	Written presentation of information for discussion. May be used as precursor to public meetings or other discussion.
Public meetings & forums	Audiences usually over 20 people. Meeting is structured to canvass views and debate an issue. Representatives are usually nominated by consumer groups/associations.
Input into needs assessment process	Cyclical planning process. Input into needs assessment may be provided by using a number of the strategies listed in this table.
Consumer reference groups	Reference groups are established for consumer and community members to provide advice and participate in service planning and evaluation. Need to ensure that representatives are linked to their appropriate constituency. Representatives need to have tenure long enough to learn to be useful, but not so long they become part of organisation.
Policy Round Tables	Convened to advise on the development of specific policy. Invitations can be extended to consumer and community representatives to discuss policy items.
Consumer and/or community reps on committees	A person or group of people act on behalf of a community group or organisation and bring a consumer perspective to a committee. It is important to clarify representative’s roles and the terms of reference of the committees they sit on.

For further detail about the Community Advisory Committee,
or community and consumer participation email:
Linda.Pandita@southernhealth.org.au

To provide consumer feedback, complaints and compliments email : feedback@southernhealth.org.au
To contact Southern Health email : publicaffairs@southernhealth.org.au .

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