The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) conducts an annual stakeholder survey to improve the way we work with our stakeholders and to help report on our key performance indicators. The 2021 survey and report has been streamlined to ensure the TGA can better identify and respond to the key challenges and opportunities our stakeholders have identified. This includes removing some questions from the previous survey and adjusting some stakeholder categories.
The 2021 survey found that approximately two-thirds of Australians had heard of the TGA, up from half in 2020. Most respondents trust the TGA to act ethically and with integrity and believe the TGA gets the balance right between access to therapeutic goods and safety for consumers.
Despite the challenges the pandemic has placed on the organisation, most survey respondents believe the TGA has responded effectively to COVID-19, and more Australians are aware of our work in this area than ever before.
The survey found that while most stakeholders have a positive experience when interacting with the TGA, there are some recurring challenges. For example, some found it difficult to obtain specific advice from the TGA and/or experienced a delay in receiving a reply due to the very significant increase in enquiries received due to COVID-19.
Stakeholders also identified other areas for improvement, including the TGA's website, a lack of transparency in the progress of applications and difficulties searching the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG).
The TGA Transformation Program has been established to address many of the issues that stakeholders have identified in the survey and in other consultative forums. The Transformation Program includes work to redevelop the TGA’s website, improve the ARTG search tool and the display of information, and to digitise many processes that will lead to greater transparency of an application’s progress. We look forward to sharing the progress of these enhancements with stakeholders.
Overall, the 2021 survey indicates that awareness of the TGA is growing, and most of our stakeholders—as well as the broader Australian community—hold positive views about the TGA. This presents us with an opportunity to help educate more Australians about our role to ensure the benefits of medicines and medical devices far outweigh any risks, are high quality, and do what they're supposed to.
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Contents
The TGA stakeholder survey report is structured to include a narrative overview of results at the beginning of the report (22 pages) followed by results tables for different stakeholder groups.
- Summary
- How to read this report
- The survey approach
- Overview of results
- Appendix A: consumer results
- Appendix B: Opt-in medical products industry results
- Appendix C: Opt-in health professional – medical, dental, pathology and pharmacy practitioners' results
- Appendix D: Opt-in health professionals – Complementary healthcare practitioners’ results
- Appendix E: Abbreviations