Page 3591 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 2010
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ensure that problems regarding the complaints process do not happen again. We have been advised that ACT Health is planning to engage other ACT government agencies to develop better processes and practices in relation to managing bullying and harassment, with a particular focus on training and supporting managers to deal with these issues. It is also reviewing its antidiscrimination, bullying and harassment policy and procedures to ensure that the process clearly outlines responsibilities of all parties and includes fact sheets for staff and managers on how to deal with issues when they are raised.
As I alluded to earlier, a purely internal review often leads to conflicts of interest and potentially inaction. To ensure we are getting the right kinds of results for the staff of the Canberra Hospital, we will be moving an amendment to this motion. Paragraph (2)(b) of the amendment ensures that ACT Health will work with the Work Safety Commissioner to develop and implement best practice bullying and harassment standards for the department. I move the amendment circulated in my name:
Omit all words after “notes”, substitute:
“all findings and recommendations from the ‘Review of Service Delivery and Clinical Outcomes at Public Maternity Units in the Australian Capital Territory’ released on 5 August 2010; and
(2) calls on:
(a) all Members of this Assembly to respect the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1994; and
(b) the Chief Executive of ACT Health to seek the assistance of the Work Safety Commissioner in ensuring ACT Health has in the medium to long term best-practice policies for preventing against bullying and harassment in ACT Health workplaces.”.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Health and Minister for Industrial Relations) (8.40): The government will not be supporting Mr Hanson’s motion today. The motion does cover a lot of what we discussed in this place yesterday.
It is interesting that Mr Hanson opened his address to the Assembly tonight by discussing that his chief motivation, principally his concern, was about patient safety. That is a good place to start, rather than again going over a lot of the issues I spoke about yesterday—although if I have time I will do that. When you look at the clinical services report, which I commissioned to address those issues of public concern about patient safety and the issues that arose in the media that led to the staff meeting which uncovered concerns within the workplace about the workplace environment, you will see that the issues were actually around patient safety at the hospital. That led to the clinical services review.
When I have been talking with staff out in the maternity unit around the clinical service review, one of the things that they have said to me is that they are very disappointed that the review said that they were consistently comparable to
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