TGA stakeholder survey report 2023

We conduct an annual stakeholder survey to improve the way we work with our stakeholders and help report on our key performance indicators. 

The aim of the survey is to obtain actionable data to help drive our improvement agenda. This year we also reached out to more of our stakeholders, including state and territory government representatives, to better reflect the groups that regularly work with us.

Survey findings

The 2023 survey found that about 65% of Australians had heard of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). While awareness has fallen compared with the 2022 survey (69%), it is still well above awareness from 2020 (52%) and earlier years.

We continue to be trusted to perform our role ethically and with integrity (82% of all stakeholders). Most respondents believe we get the balance right between access to therapeutic goods and safety (63% of all respondents with 24% selecting ‘unsure’ or ‘neither agree nor disagree’).

While most stakeholders have a positive experience communicating with us (67% of all respondents, with 17% selecting ‘neither agree nor disagree’), there is still work to do. We respond to most enquiries within 5 days, but about 15% are taking 10 days or more to answer. 

Most stakeholders believe prescription medicines and medical devices are appropriately regulated, believe we respond effectively to non-compliance and are generally happy with our educational activities, consultations, and regulatory advice. 

While the results are positive overall, there have been moderate drops in satisfaction among consumers in some areas, such as trusting us to perform our role ethically and with integrity. We will continue to monitor these areas. 

Our Transformation program

During the last 12 months, our Transformation Program has made significant progress to address several long-standing barriers our stakeholders have encountered when interacting with us, including launching the new TGA website, the Database of Adverse Event Notifications (DAEN) – Medicines and supplementary ARTG Search Visualisation search tool. Pleasingly, many of our stakeholders have acknowledged these improvements (see Improvements to our services).

You can also expect further improvements to our services as part of our Transformation Program, which is progressively digitising and improving our processes. For example, we have heard from industry representatives about the need for greater transparency in the application and assessment process and are designing and developing a business portal to address these issues. 

Contents

Our stakeholder survey report is structured to include a narrative overview of results at the beginning of the report followed by results tables for different stakeholder groups.

• Introduction
• The survey approach
• Overview of results
• Appendix A: Consumer results
• Appendix B: Opt-in stakeholder results
• Appendix C: Health professional results
• Appendix D: Government representatives
• Appendix E: Abbreviations

Download the report