Can I make a difference?

Yes! We welcome a broad range of people to join as Consumer Partners. 

Our Consumer Partners come from different backgrounds and bring different health experiences. Having a broad mix of people helps us to better understand our communities’ health service needs.

Image of male and female Consumer Partners with staff.

What would I do as a Consumer Partner?

When you partner with your local health service, we all benefit. The types of things you might do include:

• fill in Have Your Say cards or the online give feedback form, to tell us what is going well and what we can improve 
• help us develop new patient information, to make sure it is easy to use and read 
• fill in a survey, to tell us your thoughts about a service or topic
• join a group to help us shape a local service to meet consumers’ needs. 

You can also partner with us in a formal role. We have a Consumer Partnering Team (staff) to support you in these roles. 

A formal Consumer Partner role supports a committee or group. You will join our staff and meet once a month to discuss:

• health service topics 
• the needs and likes (preferences) of staff, patients and the community 
• how to support change and improvement.

Image showing a meeting with Metro South Health staff and Consumer Partners.

To learn more about a formal Consumer Partner role, read the frequently asked questions (PDF, 217.98 KB).

A formal Consumer Partner role can also support MSH Research. To learn more watch the Introduction to consumer partnering for research (vimeo) video.

How Metro South Health values Consumer Partners

Consumer partnering is a major part of how we deliver quality care. 

We have a detailed plan about how we will work with our consumers and community (Consumer and Community Engagement Strategy). 

We support 

• our staff to partner with their patients and their care givers
• our leaders to partner with consumers 
• our researchers to partner with Consumer Partners
• the Consumer Partner Network and we celebrate the work of our Consumer Partners.

For more information about Consumer Partnering:

• NSQHC Standard Two Consumer Partnering fact sheet