Table 2.

Effectiveness – Organizational systems to support Partnering with Consumers.

Effectiveness – Quantitative
Question			Measure
Is there a current Organization Consumer and Community Engagement (CCE) Strategy? (Legislative requirement)			Yes
What percentage of the CCE Strategy 2020–2022 was achieved?			The majority was achieved. The current CCE 2023–2026 strategy has commenced action on 71% of the 3‐year plan.
Does the Organization NSQHS Standard 2 Committee have an action plan?			Yes
What percentage of the Organization NSQHS Standard 2 action plan 2022 was achieved?			60% with the remaining rolled into the 2023 plan
How many Directorates have a Standard 2 action plan?			4/6 Directorates
How many sites underwent accreditation during this period (2019–2022)? Were there any Not Mets for Standard 2?			All sites. All met Std 2 requirements (One Directorate had 4 recommendations in late 2021, but met mid 2022)

Effectiveness – Qualitative Themes
Question	Executive positions	Consumer Partners		Consumer Partner Team members	Directorate representatives
1. What are the conditions and mechanisms that have led to the effectiveness of consumer partnering being embedded into Clinical Governance?	Good governance and management at organizational level from the MSH std 2 committee, PwC manager, and PwC team structure – executive sponsor, committee reps from each directorate, plans drive actions process – leadership, monitoring and communication from MSH to directorates	Direct contact between consumers and executives via meetings Change in committee strategy followed changed expectations of consumer partnering from national standards and board Central resourcing of clinical governance has helped directorates (with practical matters and building capacity)		MSH Partnering with Consumers Committee + action plan – clear vision and direction and everyone (staff and consumers) knowing what the focus is Aligned governance structure has improved effectiveness Alignment to organizational strategies	Accountability – plans are followed up teamwork – shared commitment from staff and consumers Support from PwC team – resources and point of contact
2. Have there been any downstream effects that were not expected?	Presence within clinical governance brings attention to PwC across teams and management (more so than other areas of organization, e.g., HEAT) with positive effect Consumer partners maturing faster than the organization Active involvement and support of executives makes advocacy for PwC easier at directorate level	Elevated importance of consumer partners Consumers contributions are taken seriously Redundancy and duplication of work at Directorates		Working with, rather than parallel to clinical governance Closer relationships with executive but further from the board Consumer partners and staff improving together with support Effective and better than expected	Visibility of Consumer Partnering/Team Increase workload at Directorates with new initiatives. Created a place for person‐centred Care Coordinators to network and collaborate
3. What explains variation on outcomes across sites?	Skill of committee chairs Directorate Culture – services linked closer to community tend to have more warmth, easier to build relationships in smaller sites Resourcing ‐‐ staff Size of directorate – big and complex structure is more difficult to influence	Staff changeover Commitment and passion of staff Some staff resistant to change Tension between central standardization and local tailoring		Directorates with different levels of maturity Consumers oriented to the service's structure and operations understand the issues	Size of directorate – bigger is more difficult Executive commitment
4. What are your thoughts on whether the staff/consumer partner relationship in committees is working as a partnership?	Discussion at meetings is collaborative Difference between partnership and advocacy or information sharing Variable and evolving – from well to tokenistic	I often feel that I'm part of the team Some instances it's still in developmental stage Incremental changes and improvements Negotiated how to work in genuine partnership Consumers can't approve/decide anything but can influence		There's positives and negatives. Some staff are really getting good at it and some staff are still not there yet Need to get good fit for partnerships to work	It's like any team as you get more used to each other and understand each other's styles and people get more confident Dependent on the chair Tough balance between dialogue (feels productive) versus bureaucracy (takes up valuable time)

Abbreviations: HEAT‐Health Equity Access Team, PwC‐Partnering with Consumers