The Emergency Department provides hospital based acute care for the population living in the North of Adelaide. Prior to the project the ED made no formal assessment of the needs of the community and apart from letters of complaint there were no mechanisms to directly measure its performance in terms of service provision.

For a service provider to effectively deliver services it is essential that the needs of the consumer group are well researched and that these are taken into account in planning the delivery of services. This is important to ensure that services are targeted to the needs of the consumer group. It is also crucial that continual adjustments are made to maintain high quality delivery of service to the consumer.

In general, consumers of ED services have little opportunity to express their concerns or needs in respect to these services. Feedback regarding services is generally limited to letters of complaint and approaches from concerned community health groups. This is of major concern because the community features a high proportion of people from disadvantaged backgrounds, including people from non-English speaking cultures, low socio-economic status and indigenous groups. For many of these groups there is very little opportunity to voice their needs or concerns.