HCCA deputy director Kate Gorman said community consultation had been vital in creating better experiences for patients and their carers. Photo: Claire Fenwicke.
Community input into the Territory’s health infrastructure will become more formalised through the creation of a new consumer reference group.
Made up of representatives from across age groups, cultures, experiences and levels of ability, it will provide advice for all health projects, including the new northside hospital.
Health Care Consumer’s Association (HCCA) deputy director Kate Gorman said while broad community consultation would still be part of the process, this allowed for a better understanding of different people’s needs in health spaces.
“We know that community participation in designing these facilities makes them a better, more suitable facility for the community, so we know that by having a group like this, which is embedded in every process, we know we’ll get a better quality of outcome in the buildings,” she said.
“[We look at] what’s needed there in the perspective of what is it like to be a patient in those buildings. What is it like to be a family member or a carer who also needs to use those buildings? That’s a very different perspective.”
The creation of the formalised group builds on consultation, which occurred for Canberra Hospital’s new Critical Services Building.
Ms Gorman said their feedback was vital in making sure the new building suited the needs not just of clinical and medical staff but of patients, family members and their carers.
This included dimmable lights in rooms, dedicated consumer power points in practical spaces, new family spaces with showers, improved accessibility with service counters at wheelchair height and electric doors for public bathrooms, the inclusion of a play zone for kids and a sensory room in the emergency department, and a new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lounge with an outdoor space and yarning circle.
“[Everyone] will be able to go to a private, quiet, comfortable place with comfortable furniture, places to charge your technology, places to have a shower, eat a meal, and do your waiting in a much more supportive environment,” Ms Gorman said.
“Places where people can feel at ease, as much as possible, while they wait.”
Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said the permanent group would give the chance to build on lessons learned and create consistency as the same groups would be consulted on hospitals and walk-in centres.
“Having a permanent consumer reference group that we can engage in these infrastructure projects really brings that expertise of lived experience of consumers and carers to the table alongside the experience of clinicians to help our infrastructure teams get the designs right from the start,” she said.
Some of the changes that have been incorporated into the Critical Services Building design are also being recommended as changes to the Australasian Health Facility Guidelines.
Given the group could see how their suggestions worked in practice, it would also create the chance to tweak design features depending on each health project and its use, “so you’re going to have different feedback depending on whether it’s a mental health facility, whether it’s a facility for children, whether it’s a facility for the early pregnancy unit”, Ms Stephen-Smith said.
“Overarching all of that, we need to continue to have those conversations with consumers about what they’re hearing, what they’re seeing every day in our hospitals so that we can improve our infrastructure right across the board.
“We also know that there are things that people weren’t necessarily thinking about a decade ago but have now come to light as being really, really important.”
Expressions of interest for the health infrastructure community reference group will be advertised soon, with expectations the group will be up and running by the end of the year.
Traditional consultations with the broader community and other stakeholders, such as clinicians, will still occur.
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