Metro North Hospital and Health Service Consultation Hub

For feedback on the consultation draft for Metro North Health Literacy Approach.

The aim of Metro North Health Literacy Approach is to create a platform for a shared understanding of health literacy that will support proactive and coordinated actions for improvement across Metro North.

The Health Literacy Steering Committee which includes consumers, staff and community partners has overseen the development of this approach. 

Two consumer workshops were held earlier in the year to inform the foundations for Metro North's approach to health literacy. A working group of consumers and staff developed Metro North Health Literacy Approach as a consultation draft.

50 people provided feedback on the consultation draft (7 consumers and 43 staff). RBWH clinical council was consulted and another workshop was held with consumers and staff to consider all of the feedback and finalise the approach. In summary you told us:

• to focus on health and wellness and not just managing illness
• health literacy is a shared responsibility requiring collaboration amongst staff, consumers, carers and community partners
• we needed to clarify what we are aim to improve by tackling health literacy
• to ensure our entire healthcare workforce is supported to contribute to health literacy
• commit to continuous improvement, evaluation and research.

We revised the Metro North Health Literacy Approach.

It was approved by Metro North Operational Leadership Team in December. A health literacy webpage will be launched in the new year and we will take action to address the priorities in the approach.

We sought consumers, staff and community stakeholders views on the proposed Connecting for Health 2019-2021 strategy for inclusive engagement, involvement and partnerships.

Connecting for Health sets a clear direction and course of action to empower consumers to be actively involved in their care and to embed consumer and community involvement in shaping the services of Metro North.

We held 2 workshops - one for consumers and one for staff engagement leads. In addition, 14 people participated in the online consultation.  Your feedback highlighted the need to strengthen the following areas:

• flexibility in engagement methodology to be inclusive of a diversity of people and voices
• advancement in health literacy
• greater focus on outcomes
• clearer accountabilities for performance and outcomes
• demonstration of service improvements through partnerships and co-designing care with consumers.

We listened to your recommendations and updated the draft Connecting for Health 2019-2021 which was presented to the Metro North Board for endorsement on 18 December 2018.

Click here to to open Connecting for Health 2019-2021.

For feedback from staff, consumers and community on the draft Metro North Safety and Strategy 2019-2024. The draft strategy was developed following extensive consultation with staff, consumers and partners.

In Metro North, we’re committed to making sure that the people who use our services are safe and feel safe.  We’re also striving to continuously improve the quality of the services we provide.  Achieving this means having a culture that is focused on patient safety and quality improvement.

We recognise that for patients and consumers to have the best outcomes from their healthcare, they need to be at the centre of all that we do - from the way we communicate, plan and provide care, to the ways we design systems of care that keep patients and staff safe.

Patients are also our focus as we assess the safety and quality of the care we provide and research new and better ways of caring.

We updated the draft strategybased on the feedback received. Please see the final Metro North Safety and Strategy 2019-2024 below.