Health Sector Co-design Group
Current topicThe Health Sector Co-design Group (HSCG) held its first meeting on 20 December 2017 to commence discussions on a design for the evaluation of the Australian Government’s investment in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health care under the Indigenous Australians’ Health Programme (IAHP).
Welcome to Country was delivered by Ngunnawal Traditional Custodian, Adrian Brown. Members then discussed their aspirations for the co-design of the proposed evaluation, their role as ‘co-designers’ and approaches to obtain broader input from others into the evaluation design, including people who use primary health care services.
Members were encouraged by the opportunity to collaborate on the design of the evaluation and to be involved right from the start. They emphasised that it is important for respect and clarity to be at the heart of the co-design work, and that information put out to the public needs to be user-friendly. They suggested that the evaluation learn from other consultation processes, reviews and evaluations as much as possible, so as to not overburden communities and those providing primary health care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The HSCG highlighted that the scope of the proposed evaluation is big, complex and exciting. This proposed evaluation will need to consider the impact of cultural, social and wellbeing determinants on health, and the contribution to population health of the primary health care system for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The HSCG also welcomed the opportunity to be part of co-designing an evaluation that will enable a deep understanding of the inter-relationships between communities and their services, and that will promote system learning and adaptation.
The next task of the group is to consider and fine-tune the questions that will be guiding the evaluation. The focus of the next meeting of the group in early April 2018 will then be to develop the evaluation methodologies that will best answer these questions. The evaluation team will be collecting views and ideas from a range of communities and health sector people around Australia.
