RACP - Project Design >> Consumer Involvement

Project Design >> Consumer Involvement

Including a consumer representative in your core team from its inception can assist your project in the following ways:

Improving the design of the methods to collect local evidence about patients’ experiences of their care and knowledge about the evidence pertaining to their condition;
Obtaining information from other service users about their experience of care (since patients often share higher quality information with other consumers);
Spreading information to other consumers and the community about the work being undertaken in the project;
Assisting with the design of evidence-based information (e.g. kits, brochures) for subsequent use by patients; and
Assessing proposed interventions or actions from the service users’ perspective and alerting the team of any potential problems for consumers.

A consumer representative is not an individual representing their own personal view, but someone committed to representing a broad range of consumers’ views. A consumer representative will usually be accountable to an organisation and/or be required to refer back to their constituency.

In some cases, a carer may be an appropriate person as a consumer representative, particularly if your project is focusing on care of children or people with dementia or some other illness that can make it difficult for the patient to participate.

You may be able to access a consumer representative willing to join your core group through:

your hospital or health service,
a local self-help group.

If this is not possible, seek assistance through:

your professional organisation, or
one of the broad-based consumer organisations.

The Consumer Health Forum is a useful starting point for finding a consumer representative as it will be able to provide up-to-date contact information about consumer groups in your state. It can be accessed at the following website:
www.chf.org.au

Practical tips associated with best practice for consumer participation can be found on the website for the National Resource Centre for Consumer Participation in Health:

www.participateinhealth.org.au

"Initially management and clinicians were unsure of how to involve consumers and there were risks for both groups. There was need for common ground, trust and an assurance that the relationship would have meaning. (Now) the impact of this involvement is spreading to other areas of service development. Involvement of consumers in all aspects of care is a clear priority and the project made significant advances in developing a true partnership approach between consumers and health organisations."

Health service senior manager, Towards A Safer Culture