Health consumer organisations (HCOs) have a major and growing voice in health policy, including through submissions and discussions about government subsidy for new medicines. Health consumer organisations are funded in a variety of ways and many accept pharmaceutical industry funding. This...
The Consumers Health Forum welcomes the AMA’s position statement on health literacy as important recognition of the need for strong public support for people to have access to valid health information. “CHF has long argued for more focus on health literacy to ensure people understand their own...
The lowest average rise in health insurance premiums in nearly 20 years is welcome although many Australians in the current economic climate will struggle to meet the increased cost, the Consumers Health Forum said today. “The 2.74 per cent average increase in premiums to take effect next April is...
CHF’s Consumer Commission report whose key recommendations included a focus on mental health, came out just days after the release of the Productivity Commission’s final report on mental health. The two reports produce broadly similar findings about the widespread dearth of services and pressing...
Mind the Gap - London Underground
Much health policy decision-making is a contest between government and the powerful vested interests in health. That poses a constant challenge to ensure the interests of the most important player, the consumer, are not squeezed, or in fact squeezed out, of the process.
Leanne Wells, Mark Morgan and Leanne Beagley Social prescribing presents a step forward in healthcare. Far from being left behind by the dominating impact of COVID on health thinking, it appears that the pandemic is reinforcing the potential of social prescribing as a spur to improved health care,...
hands holding paper friends (decorative)
First it was improvement, then it was innovation that we were all doing, now its co-design and co-creation. Specifically, in healthcare it is Experience Based Codesign that everyone is talking about. An enabler for co-design is the practice of genuine collaboration. Interestingly, there are not...
More than ever the COVID experience has brought home to us how inextricably the population’s health is linked to economic health. We have seen everyday evidence of how strong public health systems protect people and the economy by reducing the spread of recession-inducing disease. We have also seen...
CHF has undertaken numerous activities during the pandemic to gauge consumer sentiment on federal government initiatives. Among these have been Australia’s Health Panel surveys on telehealth and the COVIDSafe app, and CHF’s establishment of a Consumer Commission to inquire into the lessons of COVID...
How can patients and clinicians get a better outcome from health care? It’s a question of central importance never more so than now with health care not only continuing to rise in cost, but also in its power to both benefit and sometimes set back patients. One big solution is enabling patients and...

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