Building healthcare rights into systems, policies and procedures

Page content: Using the brochure | Role of healthcare services in realising healthcare rights

Using the brochure

The Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights in Victorian brochure should be used as part of a broader consumer information policy that provides consumers with access to high quality and timely information about their health care and treatment options. It can also be seen as part of a broader package of initiatives to improve quality of care in Victorian healthcare services.

Some healthcare services may already have their own rights and responsibilities materials, and perhaps their own charters. The brochure outlines a set of principles that sets minimum expectations of what consumers can expect when seeking or receiving care. The Victorian government recommends use of the Victorian brochure. Services can choose to review their charter against The Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights in Victoria brochure and can either use the text to replace their charter, combine the two, or simply keep their existing charter, if it is consistent with the brochure.

The brochure should be incorporated into all relevant policy and procedures, and integrated into all relevant consumer information material and publications. For example, your service could:

• Incorporate the brochure’s text into policy and organisational documents such as the mission statement, service charter, objectives, strategic plan and code of ethics, codes of conduct

• Engage local consumer groups in discussion about the brochure and healthcare rights

• Use the brochure as a framework for reviewing organisational policies

• Use it to inform evaluation of programs, or

• Use it as a reference point in managing complaints.

Informing patients, consumers, families and carers about their healthcare rights and the brochure is critical, and can be assisted by effective promotion and dissemination of the brochure in your healthcare service.

It is also important to measure the impact of the brochure: the success of its promotion and dissemination, and whether it is impacting on consumers’ experience in your service. Ideas include including questions in patient satisfaction surveys about whether patients have received the brochure and whether their rights have been respected, surveys of staff knowledge about and attitude towards the brochure, and monitoring requests for the brochure.

Role of healthcare services in realising healthcare rights

Following are some additional ideas about how healthcare services can help realise the seven key healthcare rights listed in the national charter and Victorian brochure: access, safety, respect, communication, participation, privacy and comment.

Many of these ideas may already be part of your organisation’s policies and practices. Others may provide opportunities for enhancing your ways of working. Your service may decide to explore ways of implementing these and other ideas through staff training sessions, or through planning processes involving your staff, Board or community advisory bodies. Further information is available about disseminating the Charter, communicating the Charter directly to consumers and the role of healthcare providers in realising healthcare rights.

Access

This right is enhanced when healthcare services:

• are mindful of patients’ and consumers’ broader treatment needs, any existing disabilities  and continuing and after-hours treatment
• provide and efficiently manage adequate facilities, equipment and supplies
• provide support, where appropriate, for people who need to travel to receive public healthcare services
• offer patients and consumers, where appropriate, the choice to be either a public or private patient.

Safety

This right is enhanced when healthcare services:

• employ qualified, competent and experienced staff and managers
• ensure facilities and procedures meet industry and safety standards
• provide staff with the resources necessary to provide safe, effective care
• have systems that promote patient and consumer safety
• provide a safe, secure, and supportive environment for staff and consumers
• continually work to improve their quality of care, including for public health services by reporting on this annually to their community.

Respect

This right is enhanced when healthcare services:

• develop and maintain an environment that supports mutual respect, co-operation and communication amongst staff, and between staff and consumers
• support staff to abide by appropriate ethical standards and practices, codes of conducts and principles of non-discrimination
• develop and sustain a service that is free from discrimination and which treats patients and consumers with respect and dignity.

Communication

This right is enhanced when healthcare services:

• provide information on how and where to ask questions and obtain information
• ensure patients and consumers know who is providing their care and how to contact them
• provide appropriate access to accredited interpreters and patient and consumer support processes to assist with clear communication, including disability aids and equipment
• provide training for staff on cross-cultural communication, including effective use of interpreters
• include signage in relevant community languages in public areas about the right of patients and consumers to an interpreter
• Ensure that all brochures are available in community languages, and keep up-to-date demographic statistics about language needs in their catchment
• ensure systems are in place to support open disclosure if things go wrong
• try to ensure that patients and consumers receive care from the same provider throughout their period of care.

Participation

This right is enhanced when healthcare services:

• develop policies and procedures to support patients, consumers, families, carers and chosen support people to be involved in decision-making
• provide a variety of ways for patients and consumers to share their experiences and ideas, and to become more actively involved in decisions about their  healthcare service’s policies and planning.

Privacy

This right is enhanced when healthcare services:

• ensure both the facilities and equipment are in place to guarantee secure storage and appropriate confidential transmission of consumers’ information, as per Victorian and federal laws
• provide systems to support patients and consumers to access their information where permitted under law
• ensure staff understand patients’ and consumers’ privacy rights, and what information they can disclose, to whom, and under what circumstances
• ensure staff understand patients and consumers’ right to their health record, any constraints on access, and procedures for gaining full access (see above).

Comment

This right is enhanced when healthcare services:

• provide a variety of ways for patients, consumers, families, carers and chosen support people to make comment or complaints about their care
• have a high quality complaints handling system that operates through the period of care
• clearly communicate complaints procedures to patients and consumers without having to be asked for them (for example by putting a complaints brochure at reception and in patient information packs)
• ensure staff are also able to make complaints about their workplace without fear of reprisal, and to have their concerns acted on (for example through surveys or staff committees)
• implement improvements in health care informed by the views and experiences of patients, consumers, carers and families.

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