Page 1251 - Week 04 - Thursday, 5 May 2022
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Going to the subject matter of occupational violence in our health services, as I indicated, the Nurses and Midwives Towards a Safer Culture—the First Step Strategy, was developed with the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation and was launched in December 2018 by the former Minister for Health and Wellbeing and the former Minister for Mental Health. It is a strategy led by the ACT Health Directorate to improve workplace health and safety for nurses and midwives.
This strategy was launched because occupational violence towards nurses and midwives in the workplace is, as I said, a significant and growing concern for public healthcare systems across the world. The strategy outlines the Health Directorate’s vision and the vision of the ACT public health system of an ACT public healthcare system where staff, patients and visitors are protected from harm and feel safe at all times.
The strategy has been led by the Health Directorate but includes Canberra Health Services, the University of Canberra Hospital in particular and all of the mental health facilities there—Dhulwa, the University of Canberra Hospital and the Calvary Public Hospital Bruce.
The strategy sought to address issues related to workplace safety on multiple fronts under 22 priority actions, with the assumption being that these actions cumulatively work towards the desired impact of reducing occupational violence as well as bullying and/or harassment.
Priority action 7 of the strategy identifies the need to conduct an evaluation of the strategy with an endorsed evaluation framework as the key deliverable. This evaluation was conducted in 2021 with the following key findings: 15 of the 22 priority actions were fully achieved; seven out of the 22 priority actions were partially achieved; and none were not achieved. The strategy evaluation report found that the task strategy made an important contribution to maintaining a focus on occupational violence, in particular through its coordination efforts, by raising awareness among staff and in the community, by delivering tools for our staff and, of course, via the safe wards trial.
There are positive signs that the range of interventions are raising the awareness of occupational violence issues, are improving incident reporting, are increasing the number of conversations about occupational violence—it is important that we discuss this, and it is valuable that this is a conversation in the Assembly today, despite the way Ms Castley has put it forward—and that the strategy is meeting the expectations of staff and that staff are feeling heard. Many respondents were aware of the actions being undertaken and 40 per cent of respondents acknowledged that actions were making a difference.
Obviously, you can say it is disappointing that it was only 40 per cent, but many strategies do not have that level of engagement and that level of awareness. For 40 per cent of staff to acknowledge that the strategy itself and the actions under it are making a difference is good. Obviously, we need to do better, and we are continuing to work closely with the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation to develop the next
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