Here in Sydney Local Health District, our consumers are part of the family – they form the rich fabric of the District and help us to achieve our vision of delivering excellence in healthcare for all. They are dedicated, enthusiastic, fun and work hard to ensure that the patient voice is always close by with all of the decisions that we make.

Partnering with Consumers and Community

At Sydney Local Health District we have a commitment to cross-cultural patient, carer and family centred care. This embodies respect, compassion, support and responsiveness to the needs, experience, diversity and preferences of our patients, families, carers and the community.

To achieve our vision of Excellence in health and healthcare for all we continue to look for new ways to build our partnerships with patients, families and carers (consumers) and the communities we serve. We work together to learn from the experiences of our communities.

Delivering care across settings, in the home, community or hospital should be seamless. Delivering truly integrated care requires collaborative solutions to health and empowered, self-reliant communities.

Sydney Local Health District consumer and community partnerships align with National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) standards – Partnering with Consumers Standard which recognises the importance of involving patients in their own care and providing clear communication to patients.

The NSW Health Elevating the Human Experience – Our Guide to Action and its vision "A sustainable health system that delivers outcomes that matter most to patients and the community, is personalised, invests in wellness, and is digitally enabled" further supports the need for patient and family centred care in all health services, learning from the human experience and working together for Excellence in health and healthcare for all.

Examples of partnerships with consumers and the community

Sydney Local Health District partners with consumers in a variety of ways and continues to look for new ways to work with consumers and the community to improve care. Some examples of our consumer partnerships include:

• Consumer, patient and carer lived experience stories
• Consumer representation through Consumer Networks – consumers provide peer support
• Patients and family involvement in clinical handover
• Consumers involved in project teams
• Informal consumer feedback
• Consumers review in clinical areas
• Consumers as committee members
• Consumers develop and deliver education
• Consumers on Workforce interview panels
• Consumers involved in research

Our Network

Consumer Representative members on our Consumer and Community Advisory Network (CCAN)s are passionate about being involved in initiatives to help improve care provided to patients in our hospital. We have forum Consumer and Community Networks at:

• Balmain Hospital
• Canterbury Hospital
• Concord Hospital
• Community Health
• Royal Prince Alfred Hospital
• Sydney Dental Hospital and Oral Health Services
• Sydney Education
• Sydney Local Health District Mental Health Services
• Sydney Research
• RPA Virtual Hospital

Want to get involved?

If you would like to learn more or have a passion for improving health care in your community and have experience as a patient or family member. We would love to hear from you and discuss the opportunities at Sydney Local Health District to use your lived experience to partner with us please contact:

Sydney Local Health District Community Participation team

Email: SLHD-Consumer@health.nsw.gov.au

Be a consumer representative

To express interest in becoming a consumer representative, please fill in our expression of interest form below, and return your completed form via email to SLHD-Consumer@health.nsw.gov.au

Consumer Representative Committee Expression of Interest Form