Respondents will be asked whether they have accessed any health services in the last 12 months from a list of specific services. There were many requests to expand the list of health professionals and services. The category list will be finalised during design phase, and may include, for example, family doctor or GP, occupational therapist, speech and language therapist. There is an important balance needed here to ensure the category lists aren’t overly long and negatively impact the quality of data collected.
The challenge of this module is that any follow-on questions would be repeated for each service access, resulting in an overly long module. To minimise this burden, respondents will be asked to identify the three most important services which support their daily life. Follow up questions will only be asked on these services, similarly to the approach taken within the assistive technology module. To get a better understanding of service provision, respondents will be asked for additional detail on:
To measure unmet need, respondents will be asked what services they would like to access and what barriers prevent them from accessing those services.
Administrative data on health-related benefits, such as medical card access or other state benefits will be included to supplement this module and to better understand service provision and need.
The consultation revealed some interest in learning more about diagnostic services, particularly around access, barriers to access and whether the service is public or private. However, this topic was deprioritised due to lower support compared to topics retained. Similarly, there was some interest in the length of time to access but it was agreed this would be better captured more generally as a barrier to access.