Page 438 - Week 01 - Thursday, 17 February 2011
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operational day-to-day management of the program and training for staff members to become Respecting Patient Choices consultants. There has been over 145 consultants trained to date across the Canberra Hospital and in residential aged care facilities. These are predominantly nursing staff. The Coordinator also undertakes operational work due to the increasing demand for assistance. This increasing demand is a result of the training and support across both the acute and community sectors, and collaborative advocacy work currently being done with community action groups to increase awareness of the program so that when people come into hospital the decisions have already been made.
There are no plans to decrease the size of the program or the staffing of the program. ACT Health is looking at possibly increasing the staffing of the program to develop a resource model of care to complement the consultant model of care as nurses are finding the requirements of the Respecting Patient Choices paperwork too time consuming to complete whilst on their shift. The resource model would mean that the respecting patient choices coordinators would go to the patient on the wards to fulfill these requirements.
Ms GALLAGHER (in reply to a supplementary question by Ms Le Couteur on Thursday, 28 October 2010): I am advised that the answer to the Member’s question is:
The current activities of ACT Health to inform the community of the respecting patient choice program include regular community and key stakeholder forums, which inform the community of the respecting patient choices program and of its value. Additionally, articles are written for the ACT Law Society Hearsay magazine, Dying with Dignity newsletters and Respecting Patient Choices® newsletter.
The current activities of ACT Health to inform staff about the respecting choice program include regular information sessions to ward staff, an information sheet was circulated in November 2010 and an E-learning package is being developed, which will be available for all ACT Health.
Additionally, there are training opportunities for ACT Health staff and Residential Aged Care staff to become Respecting Patient Choice consultants. This training includes e-learning modules and face-to-face training.
ACTION bus service—wheelchair accessible buses
Mr STANHOPE (in reply to a question by Ms Hunter on Tuesday, 7 December 2010): I am advised that the initial journey planner to be released to the public will be Google Transit which does not offer this facility. I am further advised that a journey planner will be developed within TAMS and available at a later date.
ACTION is progressively upgrading its bus fleet to be accessible in accordance with the Disability Discrimination Act 1993 (DDA). At present 39.3% of ACTION’S fleet is accessible and ACTION is on target to meet the next DDA target of 55% by December 2012.
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