Page 1482 - Week 05 - Thursday, 13 May 2021

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To date, 55 of the 92 actions, or approximately 60 per cent, have been completed and a further 31 actions are on track to meet the agreed delivery date. The remaining six actions are being managed to ensure that all 20 recommendations are addressed by 30 June 2022.

As indicated in my amendments, the culture review oversight group—recently renamed the culture reform oversight group—meets on a regular basis, generally every two months, and papers presented to the oversight group meetings are publicly released after the meetings. These include a program plan and a risk register outlining when people can expect to see these actions. All 92 of these actions are identified in the risk register as to whether they are on track, completed or otherwise, and the program plan demonstrates what the timing of the implementation looks like.

We know, however, that measuring our progress is not just about whether or not we have implemented the recommendations. Measuring our progress through key indicators and metrics aligned to priority areas provides on-the-ground feedback that is central to sustainable improvement and change.

We are ensuring that how we measure success is meaningful, looks at what is important to our people, and monitors whether they feel more comfortable to report issues and concerns in the health system. For example, this means measuring staff confidence in reporting issues and speaking up, rather than just the number of issues reported. That is the type of measurement that demonstrates that we are making progress, which is why it is so important.

The three arms of the ACT public health system have implemented culture surveys, and all are currently in the consolidating phase of results to measure the engagement of people in the work that the culture review is undertaking. As an example, a Canberra Health Services survey in November 2019 found the best result, in terms of engagement, that it has ever had. It was the only one that was comparable to the former ACT Health structure. It found that the organisation is in a culture of consolidation in the BPA model, which it has never been in before. It has previously been in cultures of blame and reaction, so to achieve “consolidation” is a good, positive outcome. We recognise that we have more to do on the trajectory to get to “ambition” and “success”, as measured by BPA.

Each organisation is either in the process of planning their follow-up staff surveys for 2021 and/or investing in pulse surveys, which Canberra Health Services has been doing on a regular basis, to provide responses on initiatives that are being implemented so that we can continue to measure our success. Our pulse surveys are demonstrating that Canberra Health Services remains in that culture of consolidation and that engagement is remaining consistent—and that is despite the challenges of COVID-19.

The health system has been progressing considerable culture change through a time of unprecedented experiences affected by the impact of COVID-19. This important culture change effort has continued even as we work to ensure that the ACT community is safe, prepared and responsive. What I have observed is a highly


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