The Patient’s Voice: Australian Health Care Quality and Safety Regulation From the Perspective of the Public

Abstract

The quality and safety of healthcare is a topic of permanent debate in the field of health services policy and regulation. Often absent from this debate, however, are the views and values of the public. These are excluded by a dominant narrative of health care regulation which understands the regulation of quality and safety in health care as principally a technical and instrumental undertaking. This approach constrains the application of law and legal regulation, devaluing their normative and expressive function in this field. In-part as a form of corrective, we offer an analysis based on recent survey data, of the attitudes and perceptions held by the Australian public towards stakeholder responsibility for, and the regulation of, healthcare quality and safety.