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The Southern Health system's Community Health Council: establishment and processes to engage with communities, whānau
Sarah Derrett1, Charlotte Adank2, Karen Browne3
1Establishment Community Health Council Chair (2017-2019); Ngāi Tahu Māori Health Research Unit, Department of Preventive & Social Medicine, University of Otago.
Aims:
This paper aims to: describe steps to establish the Southern Health system's Community Health Council (CHC) and its associated advisors; discuss support for the CHC, advisors and staff; and reflect on engagement activities, what has worked well, and opportunities for development.
Method:
Prompts for establishing the CHC came from the Health Quality & Safety Commission and previous commissioners of the Southern District Health Board (SDHB). Following support from the Iwi Governance Committee and SDHB and WellSouth Primary Health Organisation (PHO) chief executives and their leadership teams, advertisements called for people interested in joining the CHC. After group interviews, the CHC was established in 2017.
Results:
It became evident that an 11 member CHC could not support all requests for engagement throughout the Southern Health system. Consequently, the CHC developed a framework for engagement, a large team of CHC advisors, and a Roadmap to support engagement activities.
Conclusions:
The CHC has supported over 120 CHC members and advisors working on over 95 engagement projects throughout the Southern Health system. It is hoped that the processes described will be useful to the establishment of robust community, whānau and patient forums intended to sit at the centre of Aotearoa New Zealand's restructured health system.
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