Talking less and listening more

Pictured: Patient Karen Hook (L) with Dr Mahinda Samararatna at Sunbury Priority Primary Care Centre.

NWMPHN is firmly committed to applying a patient-derived lens to everything we do. To do this, it is important to recognise that patient experience is deeply individual, and that patient feedback and reflection is always informative and often profound.

Inviting and valuing the voice of lived experience is thus a critical step in identifying health service needs and co-designing solutions to them. We include patient input at every stage of our mapping, design, consultation and commissioning process – through broad-brush mechanisms such as consumer surveys, but also through the inclusion of people with lived experience in our Community Council, our People Bank, and panels set up to assess providers applying to operate services through expressions of interest or tenders.

One of the most common complaints from patients as they move through different types and levels of health care provision is that they often have to recount their story multiple times. To mitigate this, NWMPHN is committed to improving communication and integration between providers, so that patient information is retained throughout. We also work to make sure access to health services operates on a “no wrong door” principle, in which people are assessed and triaged only once before receiving the type of care they need. 

From another perspective, NWMPHN has played a leading role in co-designing and commissioning several new services aimed at improving patient safety and access by easing pressures on general practices and hospital emergency departments. These include general practice respiratory clinics, priority primary care centres, the Victorian virtual emergency department and more specialised assistance services such as care finders for older Australians, and our websites Precious Time and Dementia Directory for people with life-limiting conditions.