NSW Health WSLHD Safety & Quality Account 2020-21

Improving the patient carer experience

Consumer Ambassador Program In 2021, the first WSLHD Consumer Ambassador was introduced at Auburn Hospital. Naglaa is the first Consumer Ambassador to partner with a facility in WSLHD. Naglaa is an existing member of the WSLDH Consumer Council, Hospital Community Council and Auburn Hospital Consumer Partnerships Committee with a wealth of valued community and consumer expertise. A Consumer Ambassador provides a consumer face for patients who attend a specified WSLHD hospital, to engage in conversations and other activities which provide feedback on what matters to patients at that hospital. A Consumer Ambassador has experience in the WSLHD health system as a patient or carer, advanced people skills, and is comfortable and skilled in interacting with people from different backgrounds to feed back through hospital systems to facilitate improvements that result in better patient experiences. The Consumer Ambassador program will be expanded in 2022 throughout all WSLHD health facilities and as part of the local Consumer Partnership Committees. PRIORITY 3: Promote social care and health literacy in Western Sydney communities through increasingly deep partnerships with community and consumer leaders in Western Sydney. • New Consumer Partnership Committees (CPCs) were established at Auburn and Blacktown Hospital to ensure effective consumer engagement at a facility level and progress co-design projects (further roll outs for other facilities in FY23). Co-design of welcome packs, information on Patient Entertainment System and reviewing health literate consumer resources were progressed. Consumer templates to feedback on consumer initiatives were co-designed. • A health literacy presentation to the Consumer Council was delivered and consumer health literacy training is planned for October 2022. Health literacy checklists and readability checkers are utilised when developing consumer resources and a Health Literacy Review group was established. PRIORITY 4: Systematically promote the engagement of consumers as research partners across WSLHD • After many interviews with Consumer Representatives over a four-year period up to 2020, the ‘Consumer representative experiences of partnership with health workers in Australia’ was published in the Patient Experience Journal in 2021.

“Thank you for asking me to be a part of the Allied Health first year graduate intern interviews. I enjoyed the experience and having the opportunity to interview the new graduates that will learn from such experienced and caring staff at Westmead. You and the other members of the interview panel made me feel very welcome and a part of the interview process”.

Consumer Representative

“ Helping and listening to people is not a chore but a passion. I believe everyone should be treated with dignity, kindness and respect. ”

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