Consumer engagement is where an organisation actively works and partners with consumers, carers and the community to design, plan and evaluate the health services that we deliver. Some of the ways that we can do this are to;

At South Metropolitan Health Service (SMHS), our vision is “Excellent health care, every time”. Actively engaging with our community is an important way to achieve this.

Consumer engagement at SMHS occurs at different levels, from empowering individuals to make decisions about their own care, to involving consumers in service delivery and organisational planning.

The benefits of consumer engagement include:

• Improved clinical outcomes for patients
• Shorter hospital stays
• A more positive patient experience
• Greater community and consumer satisfaction

A strategy is an action plan that outlines long-term goals and what we need to do to achieve them. Strategies are important because they provide a framework for making decisions that align with these goals. This helps us to move toward our desired future state.

The first SMHS Consumer and Carer Engagement Strategy was created in 2018. The strategy provided direction for:

• Developing processes to increase consumer participation
• Building strong consumer partnerships.

The next SMHS Consumer and Carer Engagement Strategy will build on this work.

You can access and read our current strategy in the Document Library.