Page 3019 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 15 August 2018
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The other item I understand the Chief Medical Officer spoke about during the recent estimates hearing was the need to create a network with other facilities to enable trainees to broaden their learning and experience. This is a challenge for a number of specialties in the ACT as we are a small tertiary-level hospital that cannot always provide the breadth of experiences needed for students and junior doctors to complete their training. ACT Health are working with hospitals across New South Wales to build those partnerships, particularly so that our trainees will get experience in more specialised areas. This is an item that may take some time, but I know it is one ACT Health are committed to progressing. I am hopeful all of this work will see the radiology department’s accreditation status reinstated to level A in the next 12 months.
Mrs Dunne’s motion provides a list of issues identified through the radiology department’s training accreditation process and calls for an independent review of these issues by the Auditor-General. There are two significant reasons why the Greens cannot support those calls by Mrs Dunne today. The first is that the Canberra Hospital radiology department has just undergone an independent external review. That is exactly what the college’s accreditation process is about.
Not only does it seem unnecessary but it diverts time and resources to conduct another independent review to look into the items identified in the review we have just completed. While it may serve Mrs Dunne’s political purposes to keep it on the agenda and provide another opportunity for critique, I do not think it would contribute to improving policies and processes in the radiology department. Instead, we should give the staff in the department the time and resources required to respond to the recommendations in the college’s report. It would then be appropriate for the Assembly to seek an update on progress against these recommendations at a later date.
But let’s be clear about what happens when something like an Auditor-General’s report is put on. Staff are required to spend a significant amount of time assembling documents, having conversations, investigating staff, reviewing drafts. All of these things are legitimate processes, and if there had been no exploration one might rightly pursue that. But, given that the college has just done the exact investigation being proposed here, it seems on the face of it, to anyone observing it, that this would be a duplicative effort.
Given that ACT Health has accepted all of the recommendations and is now committed to implementing them, one can only imagine that in any practical sense staff would be diverted from that implementation strategy in having to assemble all the other documentation and do the necessary work that would go into engaging in an Auditor-General’s report. On a simple merits ground I cannot come to a point where I can accept that as a good use of resources at this time.
Secondly, and importantly, the Greens cannot support this motion because it calls for the Speaker to interfere with the independence of the Auditor-General, which would be a breach of the Auditor-General Act. I am somewhat surprised that there is a need to even canvass this issue, but it is important to be clear on this point. We must maintain a clear line of independence between the Auditor-General and the Assembly so that the functions of that office are not misused or perceived to be misused for political purposes.
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