Page 3452 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 17 September 2019
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to escape from the Canberra Hospital emergency department and that a wardsman and a patient were injured in the incident. Minister, what lessons have been learned from these two incidents, one in July 2018 and one in early September this year?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I thank Mrs Dunne for the question. This was, of course, a serious incident. My thoughts are with the staff member and the member of the public who were injured in this incident. There are ongoing conversations within Canberra Hospital about security matters and working with staff to ensure that our security can be maintained.
Obviously, when a person is in the custody of police within a hospital and they try to escape, that is a significant and a dangerous situation. I want to commend the staff of the Canberra Hospital who worked really hard to ensure that patients and members of the public were protected to the greatest extent possible and, of course, police who re-apprehended the person.
MRS DUNNE: Noting that the minister did not answer the first part of the question, Minister, why have assaults on front-line hospital staff increased in recent years, what lessons have been learned from these two incidents, and have they been implemented?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: Obviously the most recent incident was very recent, so an investigation into that would not have been finalised at this point in order to implement any lessons. I will take on notice in terms of the response to the incident in July 2018 what changes were made in response to that incident.
Members will be aware that occupational violence is a very significant issue and one that we take very seriously. Mrs Dunne talks about increased amounts of violence. That is a concern that we have. We also, though, have a culture of encouraging reporting. When we start to talk about these issues, when we start to encourage reporting, we often see numbers increase.
Canberra Health Services has an occupational violence strategy working group. The working group is chaired by the chief executive officer and meets regularly. It includes more than 80 managers and staff, WorkSafe ACT, and consumer and union representatives. The working group is responsible for the implementation of the occupational violence strategy across Canberra Health Services. CHS has also updated procedures relating to the classification of incidents to provide consistent and detailed data that can be utilised in occupational violence prevention strategies.
External consultants, Aspect Consulting, were engaged to assist Canberra Health Services in the development of the occupational violence strategy and associated tools based on international best practice, including the OV strategy itself, policies and procedures, an implementation plan and associated tools. These documents were received in mid-July 2019, and consultation has been conducted with staff, unions and consumers prior to endorsement. The occupational violence strategy is in the final stages of the endorsement process. It includes the following areas of focus: governance, prevention, training, response, reporting, support, investigation and staff/consumer awareness.
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