The Health Consumers Alliance of South Australia 2002-2020
In 2001, SACOSS led the Healthy Voices Project, funded by the state government, which resulted in the establishment of the Health Consumers Alliance of South Australia, incorporated in 2002.
The Health Consumers Alliance of South Australia was funded by the South Australian Department of Health. The Alliance undertook multiple roles, including consumer advocacy training and mentoring, dissemination of information resources to consumers, working with health organisations on consumer engagement projects and to build their consumer engagement capacity, recruitment of consumer advocates for health system committees, systemic advocacy through forums, reports, and submissions, participating in health system committees, reviews, and advisory groups, presenting consumer engagement awards to the sector, conducting and reporting on surveys on consumer issues, and contributing to multiple consumer engagement frameworks. An evaluation conducted after one year found that the Alliance was succeeding in establishing a respected, credible consumer voice, building the capacity of consumer advocates, and coordinating consumer voice and input.
In 2018, the state government announced that following the decentralisation of governance in the state health system to the Local Health Network level, the Health Consumers Alliance were to be defunded in 2019. The Alliance closed in 2020.
This webpage makes available the documents produced by the Health Consumers Alliance. A library of these documents is available here and also links to key documents here. The legacy of the Health Consumers Alliance is captured in this legacy report.
A visual timeline of the Health Consumers Alliance is shown below.
