Mr BAYLEY - We did speak of James Griffin earlier. One of the reasons that his offending went unaddressed for so long was broadly a lack of understanding about reporting obligations and mechanisms. Recommendation 5.12 from the commission's report largely relates to reporting policies and procedures and awareness of mandatory and voluntary reporting obligations, including to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.
Your response, minister, says that mandatory child safeguarding training, recognising harm, grooming behaviours and how to report has been rolled out to over 15 500 staff, volunteers, contractors and will be mandatory for new employees.
That is very welcome and that's a lot of people that you've got through, but I'm interested in the detail about that training. What was it, how long was it, is it delivered in person, are they online modules, do they have to pass an exam following the training? Can you paint us a picture about the work you're doing in that space to train your staff when it comes to reporting? It was a key failure.
Mr BARNETT - The reason I put it in my opening remarks is because it's an important initiative, we are proud of it. There's still more work to do, but 15 500 Department of Health employees is a sizeable number. The deputy secretary has more detail to assist the honourable member.
Mr WEBSTER - The training was in two parts. There was face-to-face training which leadership of the Department of Health as well as staff of key units such as paediatric units et cetera undertook. That training was delivered as two two-hour sessions. Then, even if you did that, all 15 500 also then did an online module.
Mr BAYLEY - How many people would that have picked up?
Mr WEBSTER - That picked up around 500-600. That wasn't the mandatory training, that was mandatory mandatory if you'd like. You had to do that, then you also had to do the online training, which every employee had to do. That varied, depending on your skillset, between 1 hour and 1.5 hours. That was developed externally for us to cover A) grooming behaviours and what that looked like, but secondly what were our reporting requirements as health professionals. Every employee did that.
To make sure that it was accessible, it went workplace by workplace. For some of our staff such as cleaners who just don't have access to a computer as part of their duties, we provided kiosks within the hospital where they could go to. If we identified that somebody didn't have computer skills, we delivered the online training as face-to-face training and took them through that way. Both the face-to-face training and the online modules have assessment points. You can't pass that point unless you've answered the questions and got them right.
Mr BAYLEY - When did that training start?
Mr WEBSTER - It started, I want to say, in the first half of last year. What I would say to you is that from January next year we're in the process, because this now becomes mandatory training every 12 months. From January next year we start rolling out the refresher training for those that did it at first, so we're going through that. The other major part of this was to codify what the reporting lines were for mandatory reporting, either child protection or AHPRA, and have that as a poster that's in all our wards and all of our workplaces so the staff, at a glance, can see that.
Mr BARNETT - I wonder if we could table that. It's a very easy, one-page, front and back document to table that for the colleague members. I think it's a really good indication of the strength of the effort being undertaken at Health.
Mr BAYLEY - Given that the training was developed and delivered well before the commission of inquiry handed down its response, you're confident that it covers off on all the commission's expectations when it came to this recommendation and what they had in mind?
Mr BARNETT - Yes.
Mr MORGAN-WICKS - As an example, we will review to make sure that it does align with any recommendations of the commission; in particular I'm thinking the independent monitor, for example. We will adjust our mandatory reporting and notifications to make sure we're complying in terms of that further referral to an independent monitor, but it's not to stop. It was very critical for us from the hearings that were conducted through Health to make sure it was very clear for staff what the steps are and what the flow is in terms of the mandatory notifications, and a key role of the safeguarding advisors walking around hospitals is also to try to help staff..
Mr BAYLEY - Do you check in with staff to ensure that they've registered and they've got it and they've sort of digested it all properly?
Mr MORGAN-WICKS - Yes. For example, we have also included a new module within our SRLS system, our safety reporting and learning system, that is child safety-specific and I was just going to find the number of notifications. From memory it was around 153 that have already been made in relation to not just a report in relation to child safety as an incident but improvements that can be made in the workplace to make it more welcoming and safe.
Mr BAYLEY - So that was 153?
Mr MORGAN-WICKS - My apologies, Mr Bayley. A total of 153 child safeguarding SLRS reports have been submitted since the middle of 2022 when we introduced that dedicated SLRS for child safety notifications.
Mr WEBSTER - The role of the child safeguarding officer in each of the regions is to get out and - we call it -'rounding', which means they're out talking to people, checking on them, understanding, giving advice, those sorts of things, but if you walk into any of our major hospitals or major facilities you will see pop-up banners which have child safety and wellbeing messages on them with a QR code which you can access to make a report or to find out about the process and these business cards are also on reception desks right across Health as well to really reinforce that we want people to speak up, we don't want people to stay silent about child safety issues.
