QUEENSLAND NEWS
Queensland Health launches quality and safety information site Queensland Health’s Inform My Care website was launched in June 2021, providing the community with safety and quality information about Queensland’s public and private hospitals and residential aged care facilities. Inform My Care allows all Queenslanders to search across public and private hospital facilities for information on maternity options and outcomes, post-surgery infection rates, elective surgery wait times and other key performance indicators. Minister for Health and Ambulance Services Yvette D’Ath said the website would greatly assist in those wanting more information on their local facilities, enabling them to make more informed healthcare decisions. The information needed to make safe and informed healthcare decisions across every Queensland facility is now accessible in one central location. Data on public and private residential aged care facilities is also available. Aged care facilities can also showcase information such as their quality and safety aspects, including average daily resident care hours and for public residential aged care facilities, compliance with the recently legislated nurse and support worker-to-resident ratios. The database is an important step towards greater transparency across the entire health system. The Health Transparency Act 2019 is the legislative framework that was established for the website, and it applies equally to public and private health facilities. Evidence from both Australian and international jurisdictions confirm that hospitals which provide the highest quality of care are those that have a detailed focus on a strong safety culture which is supported by open and transparent reporting. Reporting safety and quality information in the public domain has been shown to stimulate efforts to improve performance that internal reporting of the same information fails to produce, leading to an improvement in the overall performance of the health system. For more information or to access Inform My Care, visit informmycare.health.qld.gov.au/home
Queensland’s Criminal Code Act gets updated From July 5, Queensland’s Criminal Code Act 1899 has been amended under the Criminal Code (Child Sexual Offences Reform) and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2020, to include two new offences (Criminal Code, Chapter 22— Offences against morality): ss. 229BB Failure to protect a child from a sexual offence: will make it an offence to fail to protect a child from a sexual offence in an institutional setting. ss. 229BC Failure to report sexual offending against a child to police: will make it an offence for any adult not to report sexual offending against a child by another adult to police. The offences recognise the difficulties victims have in disclosing or reporting abuse, the vulnerability of children, and the risk that perpetrators of child sexual abuse may have multiple victims and may continue to reoffend against particular victims over lengthy periods of time. The Criminal Code amendment does not replace the mandatory reporting obligations of doctors and registered nurses under the Child Protection Act 1999 (Qld) (the CP Act). The Department of Justice and Attorney-General are responsible for leading the distribution of central information for the new legislative amendments to agencies and have made the following resources available to Queenslanders: qld.gov.au/protectchildren or qld.gov.au/law/crime-and-police/types-of-crime/ sexual-offences-against-children
Sector Leader M A G A Z I N E
| August/September 2021
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