NSW Health is responsible for supporting the health and wellbeing of Australia’s largest population. Its vision is for a sustainable health system that delivers outcomes that matter to patients, is personalised, invests in wellness and is digitally enabled. With the expiry of its prior strategy in 2021, NSW Health was in a unique position to explore how it might engage and involve its very diverse stakeholders in co-creating a 10 year strategy which might support the realisation of its bold vision.
A bold approach to engagement and consultation
NSW Health partnered with Bendelta to develop a consultation approach which could meaningfully engage stakeholders inside and outside of NSW Health in the development of ‘Future Health’. The breadth of stakeholders requiring consultation was vast: 28 internal health organisations including Local Health Districts and shared health services, a number of bespoke groups within the Ministry, universities and countless special interest groups outside of NSW Health.
What did we do?
In partnership, Bendelta developed a flexible engagement approach which, over an 12-month period provided opportunities for the diverse stakeholder of NSW Health to 1) Meaningfully contribute to the pillars of a draft strategy, and 2) Respond and refine the draft strategy prior to its finalisation. The innovative consultation approach involved a combination of large town-hall ‘online-jams’, more intimate deep-dive ‘speak-up sessions’, digital message boards, and a widely circulated survey. Participants contributed via those modalities that were accessible to them. The resulting data was analysed and coalesced into a final report arranged around six core pillars which collectively represent the roadmap for NSW Health’s 10-year strategy.
The outcome
The consultations engaged over 10,000 people across the state with overwhelmingly positive feedback. Given the high level of engagement and ultimate buy-in to Future Health, this approach has been emulated by other organisations across the health system and is seen by many as a best-practice engagement approach.
