History and governance

Health Consumers NSW was established in late 2010 due to the tireless work of health consumer advocates in NSW. With that, we joined other Australian States who, for a long time, have had independent health consumer representation peak bodies.

During the nine years of our existence, we have had significant impact in spreading health consumer participation in service delivery, policy, research and evaluation. Some of our successes include:

• the development and running of health consumer representative and health organisation training in consumer representation
• research publications and papers, including a Chronic Disease Consumer Issues Paper and the Consumer and Community Engagement Model (a joint WentWest/Health Consumers NSW consumer engagement project)
• workshops, forums and webinars on health consumer relevant topics
• regular newsletters and up-to-date health consumer news.

Governed by a board consisting of representatives from our voting members, our core funding comes from the NSW Health Ministry. Other income is generated through training, seminars and workshops.