Consumer and Community Engagement Strategy feedback

For your views on the draft Consumer and Community Engagement Strategy 2014-2018 - in particular whether you thought the objectives, measures, policy and legislative context, identification of key issues and approach to engaging with diverse communities were meaningful, informative and useful.

For the most part, you agreed that the objectives and measures were meaningful and related to what you expect from the health service. Some of you had concerns about whether the measures would provide an accurate evaluation of our consumer and community engagement efforts. There was also concern the measure around fewer patient complaints would actually reflect a reluctance to complain rather than an improvement in engagement. Most of you agreed that the policy and legislative context was useful and that the section on engaging with diverse communities provided a good outline. Some of you did not find the section on identifying key issues to be useful and easy to understand. You indicated a need for further encouragement of positive feedback along with complaints, a need to improve consistency and that there was not enough plain language used in the document. Concern was also raised that the strategy put more emphasis on receiving complaints than compliments.

We retained the key concepts, measures and objectives of the Consumer and Community Engagement Strategy 2014-2018 and strengthened it by adding some of the important ideas we received. We reviewed the measures and included one regarding the improved ability to access consistent engagement opportunities throughout health service. The effectiveness of the measures will be reviewed to ensure they are appropriate in future strategies. The section on identifying key issues was rewritten to ensure it was easier to understand and easier to find more information. The Have Your Say Campaign was added to the strategy. It encourages all forms of feedback, including compliments and complaints. The strategy will now go to the CQHH Board for approval.