Page 681 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 1990
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The recommendations are supported in general terms, because they recognise the concerns of both clients and doctors. They enable guidelines to be determined by an appropriate recognised and professional group. They do retain the role of courts as final arbiters of a satisfactory general standard in particular cases. I should say here that it is obviously the case that the law has already developed very finely-honed standards in this regard and I believe it is not appropriate to disregard them or put them aside in favour of some other independently determined standard. The recommendations are flexible and aimed at being implementable, given the complex issues involved.
The report has separately highlighted the issues relating to the ways in which the process of informing clients might be facilitated and this has some advantages. First of all, by giving the task of developing them to the National Health and Medical Research Council, the guidelines will have maximum advantage in that the processes of drafting them, providing it involves all parties, will, firstly, be educative in itself; secondly, will have potential for greater support from the community; and, thirdly, will link in to a recognised process.
It will also be able to be executed over time - that is, general guidelines could be followed by a series of more specific ones and public comment could, of course, follow concurrently. The advantage of the approach adopted is that various authorities can independently consider their own use of the guidelines. For example, the ACT Department of Health will obviously have to consider those guidelines for itself in relation to its community medical and hospital protocols and client education information and self-help programs.
The success of the strategy proposed by the report hinges, I think, upon the production of those guidelines and the usefulness of those guidelines. Developing these will be a complex task and will require cooperation from all groups involved. Before they could be adopted in the case of the ACT, my department would want to thoroughly review the guidelines and would want to be assured that all interest groups have been appropriately involved, and I intend to see that that occurs.
My department wants to consider the ways in which such guidelines might be used in, for example, its routine delivery of health care services and also in regard to special help for some client groups - for example, those from non-English speaking backgrounds or those with a speech or hearing disability. Of course, special considerations apply in those circumstances.
The report limits its consideration to medical treatment by doctors and does not raise the issues as they relate to other health professionals. The same changes which are producing increasing community demand for participation in
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