Moving beyond symbolic consultation: Patients as the pulse of health policy and funding

Behind every policy and funding decision are the lives it shapes. Tanya Hall, CEO of hearts4heart and Kate Faktor, Patient Advocacy Relations Manager at Boehringer Ingelheim ANZ, are part of a growing narrative ensuring that patient voices move beyond the footnote to become an integral part of health policy decisions.

It’s been a landmark year for Boehringer Ingelheim, recently ranked the #1 company in the Corporate Reputation of Pharma report, a title earned through the feedback of 79 patient organisations across Australia and New Zealand. But as Faktor shares, recognition was never the goal, it’s the result of a deeper shift in how the company listens to, learns from, and stands beside patient communities.

For Hall, this conversation goes far beyond corporate accolades. Just weeks ago, she took the stage at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, representing Australian voices in a roundtable that placed patient experience at the centre of global health reform. From that platform emerged the whitepaper Real Voices, Better Choices, a call to action that challenges governments and health systems to move beyond symbolic consultation and instead, embed lived experience at the heart of every decision that affects people’s lives.

As the discussion unfolds, Hall and Faktor share insights on what true collaboration between patients, industry, and policymakers can look like. They discuss the themes that resonated most strongly at the UNGA roundtable, and the international lessons Australia can draw on to move the needle forward – toward a future where patients aren’t just consulted, but empowered to shape the very systems that serve them.

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