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 will be presented to the Metro North Board for endorsement on 18 December 2018.

The strategy will be published on our website early in the new year.

For feedback on the revised draft Consumer Engagement Procedure and Guideline.

Common themes that emerged in the feedback and where clarification was required included:

• Language and tone - needed to be clearer and consumer orientated. Some language reflected staffing/employment and undervalued the contribution of consumers
• Vaccine preventable diseases (VPD) - information was confusing and it wasn’t clear what consumer activities it was applicable to
• Payments - amounts and examples of the ‘standard’ and ‘special’ payment were confusing and people were concerned how there will be consistency across Metro North.
• Succession – section in guideline needed to be elaborated, including that existing consumers will continue to be supported
• Engagement agreement– confusion around who explains this to consumers
• Diversity of consumers-  ensure a diversity of consumers is involved that is reflective of our community
• Termination – this section requires more detail on the process for staff to follow and steps to address conflict as it arises, before it gets to this stage
• Criminal history check – clarifications needs to be provided on when this required
• Opportunities to network with other consumers across Metro North
• Providing feedback to consumers on their involvement and outcomes
• Consumers accessing support resources referred to in the guideline  (that are on QHEPS)

We sought clarification on some feedback from consumers and engagement leads and incorporated feedback where appropriate.

Some consumer feedback showed confusion on the intent of these resources and overall intent of consumer engagement across Metro North. We modified the resource to make to make this clearer.

We also sought clarification and support from Metro North executive on the final draft.