Page 4028 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 26 November 2014
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I am not in a position to table the RANZCOG report today. RANZCOG do not publicly release these reports, although I understand they are considering a publicly available reporting process as part of their general college work. The report was released and it did make a number of recommendations. The amendment that I have moved has a number of commendations about the service, including the high level of obstetric experience, excellent after-hours consultant support, training supervisors who provide ongoing support and feedback to the registrars, a well-planned new building with impressive facilities, commitment to quality control and audit, research opportunities, and a consultant coordinating the weekly teaching sessions. But RANZCOG did also identify areas for improvement, based on the interviews they had with staff and some of the information that Health had provided to them as part of their accreditation visit.
The accreditation report relates to teaching standards. It does not extend to commenting on clinical care, but the directorate is working very hard to address the recommendations in the report. A number of steps have already been taken to address the recommendations. Indeed, these were put in place well before the report was received and directly in response to the feedback that we had from staff in September. These measures had been put in place well before this matter hit the public arena.
These steps include changing booking arrangements for clinics to better reflect the availability of clinicians and improving supervision arrangements for clinics. Additional recruitment occurred, and is ongoing, to assist the management of the workload. Additional locum medical officers have been recruited. Staff specialists have been appointed. An additional VMO has been appointed. Another VMO has agreed to increase their current workload, with negotiations underway with other VMOs with the capacity to do the same. Arrangements are in place for the 2015 cohort of registrars to ensure an equal spread of skill mix and experience. An additional senior registrar has been appointed from 2015, and a working party was established to provide further progress implementation on the recommendations. This working party includes representatives from the college.
ACT Health and I refute the comments made by media outlets referring to Canberra Hospital having the worst maternity unit in Australia. These comments are not contained in the accreditation report, nor were they reported by the college surveyors during the feedback to staff, and there is absolutely no evidence to support these claims.
Discussions between ACT Health and a representative from the college have reinforced that there are very good prospects for the recommendations in the report to be met within the six-month time frame before the next visit, and I have certainly indicated to ACT Health that nothing but maintaining accreditation is acceptable to the government. The college is supportive of Canberra Hospital and is hopeful that Canberra Hospital will receive full accreditation at its next visit. I think it is fair to say that there has been a lot of concern about the publicity and the headlines associated with the reporting on this issue. There is concern about those within the unit who are leaking or, for whatever purpose, providing these headlines to the media.
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