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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 6 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 2210 ..

(4) Public Health Officers are classified as Professional Officers Level 1 and Professional Officers Level 2. The salary ranges for these two categories are the following:

PO1: $31,500 - $44,192

PO2: $45,171 - $50,482

(5) A Public Health Officer performs a range of duties including inspections of premises. On average, a Public Health Officer conducts approximately 20 different routine inspections of premises per month. 1159 inspections were conducted during the 1st and 2nd quarters of 2002/2003. The number does not include inspections relating to the investigation of complaints.

Public Health Officers are multi-skilled health professionals whose duties include:

routine inspections;

investigation of food complaints;

labelling of food assessments;

suspected food borne illness (single cases and outbreaks) investigations;

food safety promotion;

investigation, prevention and control of ill-health purported to be caused by environmental exposure;

provision of professional advice and health education on public health issues including waste management, sewage disposal, drinking water quality, swimming pools, cooling towers, bathing and recreational areas;

health and safety in early childhood centres,;

environmental impact and pollution control of water, air and land; and

the health promotion work.

(6) Current performance measures set the target allocated to the Environmental Health Section of 270 inspections per month.

Public Health Officers from the Environmental Health Operations routinely inspect food premises, swimming and spa pools, cooling towers, childcare centres, nursing homes, boarding houses, registered tobacco sellers and smoke-free exempted premises.

Public Health Officers prioritise inspections on a risk basis, which means that high-risk premises (e.g. bakeries) are inspected first and more frequently in accordance with the Priority Risk Classification System. The ACT has adopted this national scheme which is used to classify food businesses into risk categories based on the type of food that is handled or sold, activity of the business, method of processing and customer base.

(7) I understand that the Government has received at least one complaint concerning the lack of Environmental Health Officers in the ACT. Accurate data on this matter is not available due to the loss of all records in the January bushfire which destroyed the Health Protection Service building in Holder.

Attention deficit disorder

(Question No 687)

Mr Smyth

In relation to Attention Deficit Disorder:

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