Page 3839 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 25 September 2019
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her services before the directorate was able to ascertain any of the queried information and she did not share the information about her mental health treatment of the deaf community prior to her departure.
The amendments to the psychologist’s contract that the directorate officials attempted to make were appropriate, as they were with the genuine intention of ensuring that this service was more accessible to those from this cohort presenting to Canberra Health Services, ensuring that it was operating within evidence-based practice and psychological accountabilities, as this is paramount for ensuring safety and quality. Safety and quality are paramount when we are working with the community to keep them safe and healthy.
The contract revision requested by the directorate required that clients would require a formal care plan indicative of a time-limited episode of care that would achieve tangible, positive and sustainable mental health outcomes for clients. This episode of care would initially be for a three-month period that would address and target specific symptoms from a diagnosable mental illness.
All ACT Health psychologists are required to work within this framework, which includes a case review, where thereafter the severity and longevity of an individual’s symptoms are assessed and a subsequent care plan can be established in order to assess the most appropriate way forward for their care. This is a standard practice, and the directorate were within their jurisdiction to revise the contract to work with evidence-based care.
The contract variation also included that any referrals to the service were to come from the mental health division in the ACT so that there would be greater transparency of the client intake and referral pathways would better support any gaps in service delivery for people who are deaf. The referral pathway review also sought to reduce the isolation of the service to the broader mental health service and integrate the doctor with other clinical colleagues of the mental health division.
There were a number of other amendments made to the contract which I do not believe are necessary to go into. However, it is important to ensure that the key takeaway from this detailed overview of how this psychologist came to no longer provide services to the deaf community is that the review was undertaken only to improve the services delivered to the clients and future clients of this doctor, improve accountability of public spending and integrate this service into the broader landscape of mental health services in the territory.
Ms Lawder has raised in her motion that members of the deaf community attended this psychologist’s services and she was appreciated by all. I do not dispute this and understand that this sort of ongoing service is desirable and very beneficial when experiencing a mental health concern. However, as I have said, it is necessary that when we are working with individuals we maintain transparency, quality and safeguards, which is what the undertaking with the doctor attempted to do. It is regrettable that the doctor did not provide the directorate with information on her client base and her service so that the directorate could clearly determine that this was a service that needed to be re-established. It is also unfortunate, as mentioned in my
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