Person-Centred Committment + 'Partnering Together' Strategies

Metro South Health Strategy and Planning recently invited consumer advisors, staff and external partners for feedback on a draft package of our ‘Partnering Together’ strategies, made up of the Person-Centred Commitment, the Person-Centred Care Strategy, the Clinician Engagement Strategy and the Consumer and Community Engagement Strategy.

Opportunities to share your thoughts and feedback were sought via an online survey.

Overall the documents were easy to understand but there is room for  improvement. You said:

General feedback

• We need to use language that can be understood by everyone, this includes removing long sentences.
• You felt the drafts still read like formal policy documents (including language and structure).
• You prefer a short 1-2-page summary rather than a longer formal document.
• You want us to make it clear how the strategies will be implemented.
• You prefer to have less strategies and integrate the content more (i.e. Person-Centred Commitment, Person-Centred Strategy and the Consumer and Community Engagement Strategy).
• You like the inclusion of visual elements to break up the text and to reduce copy.
• You noted some grammatical, typographical and formatting errors that were contained in the draft documents.

Person-Centred Commitment & Person-Centred Care Strategy 

Note feedback is combined below, as was applicable to both strategies overall.

• You felt the figures could be made clearer in description and design format.
• You would like to see the content be revised to remove duplication.
• You liked the four guiding ‘Partnering Principles’.

Clinician Engagement Strategy &

Consumer and Community Engagement Strategy

Note feedback is combined below, as was applicable to both strategies overall.

• You do not like the terms:
  • ‘citizen’ - as a reference to ‘the community’ or ‘community members’ and
  • ‘community institutions’ – as a reference to ‘community partner organisations’.
• You wanted a specific reference to be included for ‘addition and mental health’ when describing our facilities under ‘Our services, our community’, sections.
• You wanted us to include reference to the ‘Mental Health, Alcohol and Other Drugs Clinical Network’ under the Clinical Council section in the Clinician Engagement Strategy.
• You wanted infrastructure to be specifically included within the ‘Our future’ section. As you noted we will be undergoing significant redevelopment and infrastructure projects in the next 15 years.  
• You want us to be clear on our measures of success and not mix these with actions.
• You liked the three ‘Priority areas’ and what we will do within the engagement strategies and noted these were practical.

 Clarifications

• You asked for clarification on the use of the terms; ‘patient’ vs ‘consumer’, as referenced within the strategies. In the context of these strategies, we provide the following definitions:
  • Patient – is person who is accessing the health services.
  • Consumer – is a person who use or is a potential user of health services and includes family, carers, care partners and communities.
  • Consumer Advisor- is a person who has taken up a specific role to share their lived experience, with the overall aim of improving healthcare. A consumer advisor is someone who voices their individual perspectives and takes part in organisational decision making, in the planning, design, delivery, monitoring and evaluation of the health service.

• You asked for clarification on the use of the term ‘clinician ‘vs ‘healthcare staff’ within the Clinician Engagement Strategy.
  • The Hospital and Health Boards Act 2011 (Section 40) requires Metro South Health develop and publish a Clinician Engagement Strategy to promote consultation with health professionals working in the Service. Based on feedback from clinicians and consumer advisors we use ‘healthcare staff’ with the intent to be more inclusive than ‘clinician’. Further feedback received was that ‘clinicians’ is not clear to all staff with some having the perception that it refers specifically to doctors.       
• You asked for clarification on the use of the term ‘we’ within the draft documents.
  • ‘We’ has been used as a reference to Metro South Health. This was incorporated to reflect feedback to read it less like a policy document with a warmer and more conversational tone.  
• You asked for clarification on the use of acronyms within strategies (i.e. why MSH was not used to reduce words).
  • In line with feedback regarding clear language, acronyms were avoided (including ‘MSH’ in lieu of Metro South Health).  
• You requested clarification on the wording of the Acknowledgment of Country.
  • The current draft text is endorsed and reflects the copy as displayed on the Metro South Health website (metrosouth.health.qld.gov.au/).
• You proposed changes to the new Metro South Health organisational values ICARE².

We confirm the ICARE² values are endorsed by our executives, with artwork being developed for future roll out. As this stage, Metro South Health are not looking to make adjustments to these.  

• We combined the content of the Person-Centred Commitment, Person-Centred Strategy and the Consumer and Community Engagement Strategy into a single revised document titled – Person-Centred Care Strategy 2020-2024, Partnering with consumers, the community and staff for excellence in healthcare.
• In line with your feedback we restructured the document with the intent to improve the flow, changes include:
  • The ‘Glossary’ sections being repositioned to the rear of the document, with additional definitions
  • The ‘Introduction’ sections incorporated previous sections of the ‘Key components of engagement’
  • We simplified the ‘Purpose’ section, whilst incorporating the content from the ‘Topics of engagement’
  • The ‘Priority areas’ section is re-titled to ‘Priorities’ and we simplified the ‘Measures of success’ section to align with the key desired outcomes
  • The ‘Measurement’ section was simplified to link the published outcomes be as per the revised ‘Measures of Success’
  • We revised the Strategy Forewords.
• Your feedback was incorporated into revised drafts of the Person-Centred Care Strategy and the Clinician Engagement Strategy which have been circulated for executive review and endorsement.

What's to Come?

Once the draft content from these strategies have received executive endorsement, we will develop the following, for each:

• A 1-2-page summary version – as a quick reference for staff and consumers
• A detailed Implementation Plan, with clear responsibilities and associated timings for each activity
• Supporting resources and tools to more effectively encourage engagement and participation in the future with Metro South Health, and each other, about health services planning
• Develop final artwork and visual elements for all documents.

The dates for launch are under review in consideration of the impact of COVID-19 and timing of executive endorsement.

For more information – please contact Matthew McCabe, Principal Engagement Officer, Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives, Metro South Health Strategy and Planning  via email at: metro_south_engagement@health.qld.gov.au