'If you don’t involve consumers, you don’t understand your business. Whatever type of business it is, it’s got to have relevance to the people who will be the end users. And this is particularly true in cancer, where a lot of the issues are not self-evident to health professionals or to CEOs of health organisations. They’re often things which, nevertheless, have a large impact on people who are undergoing a lot of stress and difficult times in their lives and what’s important to them is often not that front-of-mind for such people….I think there’s a real opportunity to engage consumers into building a system that is much more responsive to everyone’s needs.'

- Jim Bishop, Former Executive Director, Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre

Benefits to your organisation:

• a better understanding of your consumers
• a stronger, more respected and trusted presence among consumers
• increased consumer understanding of your organisation’s constraints
• access to untapped source of feedback and solutions
• enhanced quality improvement and patient experience
• improved patient experience, leading to greater job satisfaction among your staff.

Benefits to consumers:

• a health service that is more responsive to consumer needs and issues
• improved quality and safety in a service that hears the voice of the consumer
• empowerment leading to improved health outcomes for involved individuals
• involvement and participation leading to peer support and connection among consumers
• skills, knowledge and satisfaction for consumers from contributing to change.

For more information: take a look at the evidence and support for working with consumers.