Publications

Reflections from the Online HCCA Election Forum with ACT Labor’s Rachel Stephen-Smith MLA (2024)

4 October 2024

On 23 August 2024 Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith MLA joined HCCA members to talk about ACT Labor’s policy platform and respond to the HCCA priorities. HCCA’s Statement of Priorities on our website (https://www.hcca.org.au/publication/hcca-statement-of-priorities-for-the-2024-act-election/)

HCCA members and guests were able to submit questions about health issues and services in the ACT to be asked during the event.

ACT Labor’s Health Priorities

Minister Stephen-Smith started the session by making a statement about ACT Labor’s achievements over the current term and priorities for the next term, should they be re-elected.

The Minister’s comments built on her comments at HCCA’s previous Election Forum in July, which included health spokespeople from the major parties, you can read about that discussion and HCCA’s Reflections from the HCCA Election Forum on HCCA’s website.

HCCA Minister Stephen-Smith noted achievements such as:

The opening of the new Critical Services Building (Building 5) at Canberra Hospital.

The Minister recognised the significant contribution of HCCA and Consumer Reference Groups to the success of the project. A sign of the great work done by consumers on Building 5 is that the Australasian Health Facility infrastructure Guidelines now include much of HCCA’s Infrastructure Consumer Reference Group’s input and guidance for use in developing facilities around the country.

Managing the challenges of COVID19, which dominated the first half of this term.

Introducing the Digital Health Record and MyDHR consumer portal. The Minister highlighted that the Digital Health Record can empower consumers with better access to their health information.

The Introduction of the Paediatric Liaison and Navigation Service and the Liaison and Navigation Service for adults. These programs were developed through co-design with consumers. Minister Stephen-Smith thanked HCCA for feedback on improving consumer experiences which led directly to these programs.

Taking over management of North Canberra Hospital from Calvary Health Care.

Minister Stephen-Smith highlighted a range of priorities for the future including:

Closing the Gap. Minister Stephen-Smith noted that this is one of their highest priorities. They have formed a consumer reference group to guide this work. Minister Stephen-Smith believes the new critical services building demonstrates this commitment physically, as a safe space for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Building the New North Canberra Hospital. This will be an integrated hospital and health service system. The development will ensure the most efficient use of resources with appropriate integration.

Enhancing the Digital Heath Record. Fixing data issues and achieving the Digital Health Record’s potential for data collection and access is an ongoing priority.

Bringing on board the more than 800 new health workers committed to in the ACT 2024-25 Budget.

Finding better ways to integrate with primary care.

Completing the five new health centres, underway or promised, across the ACT.

Questions from the audience

The questions from the audience focused on a range of issues including workforce, care and support for older people, hospital food services, working with community organisations, disability, neurodiversity, and the Ngunnawal bush healing farm.

Darlene Cox moderated the discussion and provided context to consumer experiences and current services.

A selection of the audience questions and a summary of Minister Stephen-Smith’s responses are shared here.

Workforce

Question: How do we ensure we have adequate permanent clinical staff and how do we continue to provide specialty care (eg Cardiology)?

Answer: The Minister advised that to improve success with recruitment rounds, Canberra Health Services have put in place a new process using a targeted recruitment team.

The new approach is making an impact and a range of clinicians, including interventional cardiologists, cardiac stenographers and preadmission nurses, will commence between late 2024 and early 2025.

Further recruitment is also underway in obstetrics, gynaecology and paediatrics using this approach. There is also an ongoing program of targeted upskilling of existing staff.

A particular focus will be working with the new head of anaesthetics to recruit specialist anaesthetists – the lack of anaesthetists is a current constraint on surgery waiting times.

Note: Darlene Cox raised HCCA’s interest in reducing the environmental footprint of health care and the impact of anaesthetic gasses on climate change. This is of interest to HCCA once the anaesthetic team is fully staffed.

Services for older people

Question: Aged Care Assessment Team (ACAT) waiting times are an issue – people need supports to maintain condition and independence. HCCA has had conversations with members who have been told the wait is over a year. What is the plan to improve this?

Answer: ACAT is Commonwealth funded. ACAT is important to ensure people stay safe at home, maintain their confidence, condition and independence for as long as they can. The ACT has long advocated for more funding so all states have appropriate levels of resourcing to get through the volume of assessments. Minister Stephen-Smith raised this again with Mark Butler at the recent Health Ministers’ meeting recently. ACT Labor recognises that appropriate preventive care and support is preferable to acute interventions in future, swift ACAT access is part of this.

Question: HCCA regularly receives comments about food in hospitals. How do we ensure older people’s nutritional needs are being met in hospital?

Answer: Food services work on the nutritional values of the meals they serve and are committed to delivering nutritious and tasty meals in the challenging hospital environment. They work hard to meet people’s needs with dietician input.

There are changes underway now. Canberra Health Services is moving to a more ‘room service’ like system.

Currently, once per month, the executive have what patients are having for lunch. This exposure to the patient experience is important.

Note: Darlene Cox commended the move away from the current ‘cook chill’ model as it will be positive for food quality and reduce food waste.

Question: The risk of falls increases as we age. Is there a preventive health plan for reducing number of falls?

Answer: To reduce falls we need a wholistic government response, including environmental factors. There has been recent focus on footpath improvements. A new insourced team has been set up to deal with repairs. This means repairs can now be undertaken more responsively. Minister Stephen-Smith has been advocating for a more accessible city and is talking to colleagues about this issue.

There is a Falls Prevention Team that works with people who have had a fall and sustained an injury. The Falls Prevention Team work with consumers to put in place a preventative plan including Allied Health and environmental changes. The Minister reported that the orthopaedics team at Canberra Health Services is keen for this to program to be expanded. Other programs such as Strength for Life and GLAAD have been well received and are popular with the community. These programs require co-payments but offer positive insight into how the public and private sectors can work together.

Note: Darlene Cox highlighted the community gym at Chifley is a valued resource where government and community organisations have integrated to provide a well used and effective preventive health program.

You can find Canberra Health Services’ Falls and Falls Injury Prevention Program on the Canberra Health Services website. (Falls and Falls Injury Prevention Program – Canberra Health Services (act.gov.au)

Preventive Health

Question: The community is appreciative of the new southside hydrotherapy pool. What other preventative health measures will you take to the election?

Answer: ACT Labor has made no specific commitments so far. Announcements are coming once the campaign period is underway. A comprehensive health policy document is being developed. There will be preventive health announcements included in that.

The government is aware of the growing demand for community based chronic condition support and commissioning of community organisations to provide that support is ongoing.

Note: Darlene Cox noted that HCCA works with 32 member organisations through the Chronic Conditions Network and funding these services to support people with chronic conditions will be beneficial.

Ngunnawal Bush Healing Farm

Question: What is happening with the Ngunnawal bush healing farm (the Farm)? Will it be transferred to community? Will it become residential?

Answer: Currently potential partners on managing the Farm do not have capacity to run a residential program. The Farm is currently providing day services only.

Clients describe it as life-saving and tell positive stores of the day program and advocate for residential capacity. The ACT Government would like to make that happen and are considering options.

It is possible to transition to residential with Health Directorate management ongoing but it would be preferable to have a First Nations organisation run the program. An advisory board will be recruited to manage any future transition.

The Glen is providing advice but cannot run a service located off their own country. They are willing and able to provide ongoing support to any local management appointed.

Support for neurodivergent people

Question: What policies and services to support neurodivergent people are planned?

Answer: Specific commitments have not yet been announced. ACT Labor are committed to developing a neurodiversity strategy. This will build on what is being learned through consultations at the Commonwealth level.

The ACT Government have heard from the community and from GPs that expanding the scope of practice for GPs to be able to diagnose and prescribe medication for ADHD would improve access. The ACT Government are continuing discussions about increasing GP scope of practice to meet that need.

People with autism do not currently have access to a lot of public follow up services or therapeutic supports. These services have not been effectively delivered via the NDIS pathway. There is a lot of work to do. Details of any planned measures will be included in future election announcements.

There are already some measures in place including:

Canberra Health Services Disability Inclusion Action Plan, which is already addressing some issues relating to health care access.

Reach out through multicultural communities to ensure developing safe spaces and services.

Low stimulation sensory rooms and adult change spaces built into new Building 5.

Sensory tools in the Emergency Department including VR goggles, games, and headphones

A range of programs targeted to young people are run through Womens’, Youth & Childrens’ Division.

A Neurodiversity Strategy is a key election issue for Labor.

Multiple chemical Sensitivity

Question: Many people requiring health care suffer symptoms triggered by fragrances and chemicals- asthma, anaphylaxis etc. Use of chemicals is pervasive and stop people affected by MCS safely accessing care. What changes can we make to help these people access care safely?

Answer: A revised MCS handout has been uploaded to Canberra Health Services website.

ISS has changed to using fragrance free products for 7 out of 9 cleaning products they currently use. The remaining two are low fragrance but do contain chlorine, needed for certain cleaning purposes.

While we can put in place a policy for staff on wearing fragrance, we can’t do so for people visiting facilities. There are many possible triggers and it is hard to control sources of sensitivity.

If you do have planned care coming up – it is important to have a conversation with your care team about your specific needs for accessing that care safely.

Note: Darlene Cox suggested that the current fact sheet does not quite meet the need the full procedure met previously and we need to work on enhancing the information available to staff.

Multicultural Health

Question: Many people in Canberra are from diverse cultural backgrounds. It is estimated that 1 in 5 people suffer from mental health issues. One size does not fit all. What approach will you take to address mental health issues in multicultural communities? It is a hidden epidemic as they do not always talk about it as other communities do.

Answer: No mental health policies have been announced yet. We learned from the ACT’s Covid-19 response, that we need to work better with the multicultural community to ensure they can access information from a trusted and understood source. Want to embed this approach access services.

ACT Labor will take the comments from this forum on board when considering approaches.

Services at the new Community Health Centre in Gungahlin will need to cater to the more diverse population in Canberra’s outer north. We will make sure services introduced in Gungahlin are targeted to meet the unique needs of those communities.

Services need to match the community they are serving.

Since this discussion ACT Labor has released their health policy. It is on the ACT Labor website https://www.actlabor.org.au/our-policies/health-plan/. There is also detail in these media releases Labor Media Releases (andrewbarr.com.au).

Rachel Stephen Smith MLA also provided a written response to the HCCA statement of priorities following the event. This response can be found here: 20240930-Letter-from-Rachel-Stephen-Smith-in-Response-to-HCCAs-election-priorities-statement-Sept-2024.pdf.