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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 5 Hansard (7 May) . . Page.. 1259 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

substantially improve communication between staff and management. This review will encompass an examination of the language used, to ensure that it is unambiguous, and will be supported by additional training for staff.

In response to recommendation 3-review of management structures to ensure training, support and supervision-the disability program has commenced the development of a training curriculum for support managers and team leaders. The program has increased the number of front-line managers-with the addition of $370,000 per annum. A program education officer has been appointed to the human resources development team. So it goes on.

Responding to recommendation 4-review of staffing to ensure long-term staff are properly trained-the disability program has already introduced performance development planning for all staff and a proposal is being considered, through the quality improvement committee, for the establishment of a continuous learning program.

Recommendation 5 was for a review of training processes. The provision of services to people with a disability occurs in a complex and changing environment, in which safety must be balanced with promoting independence and normalisation. Since the death of three clients, the program has taken clear and decisive action to ensure that this balance is more carefully calibrated for safety. That includes reviewing and modifying training in the area to make sure that it happens.

On top of those, the disability program developed a treatment summary sheet, so that every external agency practitioner providing a treatment to a disability program client is required to provide a record of every treatment. All accommodation support services houses were fitted with hot water temperature regulators, and a number of sensor alarms were installed, particularly for where staff sleep over. The program also introduced payment of an additional half-hour allowance to casual staff so that you could have a handover. They enforced the quality improvement framework so that a team of staff from all levels, using continuous improvement principles, can work to improve communications and recording systems. They increased the recruitment effort, from recruiting four times a year to continuously advertising for new staff, and they tightened the training and reporting requirement for staff sourced through casual employment agencies.

It is important to have that on record so that we can show that, where we were confronted with dilemmas or need, we took it seriously. A 40 per cent funding increase in the last four years showed this, and a program aimed at continuously improving the situation in which people with a disability lived and staff worked was taken very seriously by the department. That is in stark contrast to what would appear to be a double standard of Labor: they said that the three deaths in disability services, plus constant complaints, led to the need for this inquiry.

The health committee at that time, of which Mr Wood was chair, turned down the option of conducting that inquiry themselves. We were not afraid of the inquiry. We simply said that, to get the process right, we should let the coroner finish his inquiries so that there would be no crossover. What we predicted has actually happened and, I think, vindicated our position of the day.

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