Page 1575 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 April 2011
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The government supports recommendations that a governance structure be established to support implementation of integrated drug policy across other service providers and that key performance indicators better reflect the achievement of quality outcomes. The government’s support of these recommendations reflects our continued commitment to ensuring high levels of care and treatment are provided to detainees at the AMC.
The government has indicated in-principle support for a number of recommendations made in relation to supply reduction. The government agrees in principle, for example, that searching and urinalysis should be conducted on a more consistent basis and that individuals returning positive results should be referred to case managers so that they can be linked in with appropriate therapeutic responses.
The Burnet report also made recommendations in relation to demand reduction. The government agrees in principle to many of these recommendations, including recommendations to provide a more holistic case management approach. Seven of the recommendations made in the Burnet report have already been addressed by either ACT Health or JACS.
For example, recommendation 10, which is around revised protocols for the provision of the informed consent for information sharing between ACT corrections health program and Corrective Services regarding urinalysis testing and the presence of prescribed substances in sample, should be finalised and implemented. This recommendation has already been completed. In conjunction with the human rights commissioner, ACT Health developed and implemented a standing operating procedure at the end of 2010 to facilitate better information sharing with ACT Corrective Services to support testing undertaken by Corrective Services.
In recommendation 26, detoxification regimes should not be provided to those requesting to be inducted onto methadone. This recommendation has also been completed. A clinical assessment informs whether or not a person is offered the opportunity to be inducted onto methadone. Prisoners are offered symptomatic relief based on their clinical assessment and all prisoners are assessed within 24 hours of admission to the AMC. Furthermore, with the priority clinical triage processes, prisoners are able to be assessed and treated by a medical practitioner at the Hume Health Centre within 24 hours of coming into prison.
Recommendation 58 is that all ACT corrections health program staff should receive accredited training for pre and post-test counselling for blood-borne virus testing. This recommendation is partially complete. All corrections health staff have access to training in this area as part of a one-month induction and staff development program. However, the recommendation is only partially complete as the training is not yet accredited. ACT Health will be seeking to achieve accreditation for training in the near future.
An example of some of the recommendations that were noted include recommendation 21—a system for consensual pre and post monitoring of prisoners should be developed that identifies fatal and non-fatal overdose events, continuation
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