Consumers play a vital role in bringing patient voices and perspectives to the table. Consumers help us make better decisions and improve patient experience.
We partner with patients and consumers in many ways, including focus groups, surveys, working groups, committees, research and other initiatives to help further improve our systems, services and quality of care.
Opportunities
The Women’s is expanding our consumer partnerships and is recruiting for a number of formal committees and working groups.
Consumer representatives are encouraged to bring a patient perspective to the table, so the committee may consider issues more widely. One of the key benefits that consumers bring is ‘outsider’ voices and perspectives – a lens that helps us to understand problems and solutions in ways that are important to the patient and their family.
We encourage patients, partners, family members or carers with experience at the Women's to apply. We encourage you to apply if you live with a disability; we can support your participation. We encourage you to apply if you need an interpreter; we can provide one. We encourage you to apply if you think you are not qualified; you are an expert in your own experience and that’s what we need.
Become a vital partner in women’s health by completing an application through the Better Impact website:
The Women's Patient and Consumer Experience Community Advisory Committee (CAC) is appointed by, and reports to, the Board of Directors.
The Patient and Consumer Experience steering Committee (“PCX”) models a partnership approach and invites frontline staff to participate in the Community Advisory Committee.
The Community Advisory Committee:
- Promotes improved outcomes for patients and the broader community through effective patient and consumer partnering and participation in the hospital.
- Ensures the diverse views and cultures of women and their families are taken into account in the hospital’s decision making processes.
- Advocates to the Board and Management for effective consumer partnering in key strategic areas identified in the annual statement of priorities and The Women’s Strategic Plan 2022-2025.
- Monitors and provides advice related to the implementation and effectiveness of initiatives associated with the Women’s Strategic Priority to “partner to create exceptional experiences every day”.
- Provides regular updates to the Board, Management and the Department of Health (as required).
- Provides leadership and advice to the Board and Management, on new initiatives to deal with current or emerging women’s health issues.
- Provides advice on the development and implementation of new and revised consumer partnering requirements for the hospital and for the hospital accreditation process.
- Promotes the work of the Women’s across our local networks and communities.
To find out more, see: Patient and Consumer Experience Community Advisory Committee.
If you have any questions, please email Patient and Consumer Experience Team.
These committees and groups provide advice to our Directors and Managers on projects, action plans and clinical models of care. You may also be invited onto interview panels. Participation on these committees and groups requires a moderate amount of reading and preparation before each meeting and contributions to discussions during the meeting. You don’t need to be an expert in healthcare or have any special qualifications. You would be there to bring the perspective of our patients to the discussions.
Our review panels investigate clinical errors. Sometimes in hospitals, despite our best efforts, things do go wrong and we take this very seriously. A review panel investigates what went wrong and recommends what we need to change to prevent errors from happening again. The review panel will discuss in detail clinical events and outcomes which may be distressing to some people. But if this is something you may like to contribute to, you will be provided with training and support. The review panels don’t have a meeting schedule, they meet when they are needed. The panel will meet around three times, for an hour each time, for each review. Participation on a review panel requires a significant amount of reading and preparation for each review.
Our workforce is the heart of the Women’s. Our recruitment process often includes a panel of people who interview candidates who they think are strong contenders for particular roles. These roles are across our clinical teams, support teams and Executive appointments. To participate on interview panels you would be required to do a moderate amount of reading and preparation before each interview and be in involved in panel discussions through each recruitment process.
This covers a range of activities such as reviewing the health information we produce, reviewing our website, reviewing research and education materials, joining focus group discussions, completing surveys, being interviewed about particular topics or your experiences, and telling your stories about your time as a patient with us. Participation is less structured and often on an 'as needed' basis. It usually doesn’t require any preparation.
If you would like to provide feedback about your experience at the Women’s, both positive and negative, please contact our Consumer Liaison team. For their contact details, see: Feedback.