Workplace Health and Safety

The WHS team has continued to support staff and leaders in the identification and control of various workplace safety hazards.

This year we developed our first WHS Improvement Plan. The plan was devised by analysing our past injury and incident performance, conducting extensive research, and consulting with health and safety representatives, leaders and members of the WHS Committee. The plan includes strategies in the areas of culture and leadership, risk minimisation, injury management and continuous improvement, all aimed towards achieving our goal of zero harm. We are pleased to report that, through these strategies and a range of other initiatives, we were successful in reducing the number of lost time workplace injuries sustained by 20% as at the end of the financial year, and we are now looking at how we can improve return-to-work rates through increased collaboration with injured workers and their medical providers.

Over the past year, the WHS team has also focused on increasing communication and consultation with our employees about workplace health and safety matters, to establish a greater sense of shared responsibility in the area of WHS. This has included working more closely with HSRs, educating staff about the importance of hazard reporting, and sharing ‘good news stories’ about hazards that have been identified and resolved. We have also developed a suite of new online training modules that have helped staff to understand how they can contribute to the creation of a safer workplace for all on a practical level.

Our Employee Wellbeing Program has also continued to be an important part of our overall safety and employee engagement strategy, with a range of communications and initiatives being rolled out across various aspects of wellness such as mental health, physical wellbeing, social connectedness, and financial health. This year, we have also partnered with a local safety specialist, Pinnacle Workplace Consultants, to design a new manual handling training program for employees. This involved extensive consultation with leaders, and analysis of injury and incident trends, to develop course content that was highly tailored to the needs of each individual work area. The training commenced in May 2022 and initial feedback was extremely positive.

The HR and WHS teams have also supported the hospital as we continue to manage the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has included undertaking extensive N95 mask fit testing for new and existing employees, maintaining records of employee COVID-19 vaccinations, providing advice in relation to entitlements associated with COVID-19 absences, and managing staff communications regarding restrictions.

Patient Services

In July 2021 the Patient Services team moved under the leadership of the HR Division. Throughout the year this team continued to work collaboratively with clinical staff to deliver high quality administration services to our patients both prior to and during their stay. Whilst many of our patients feel apprehensive about coming into hospital, we continue to receive feedback from our patients about how they are put at ease by the friendly and empathetic service our administration staff provide to them.

During the year we have continued to refine our online patient admission system, delivered through Personify, to optimise take up of the system and support patients to complete their pre-admission forms efficiently. We also commenced an improvement project which aims to increase the efficiency of a number of our existing administrative processes, to optimise the patient experience and minimise errors or re-work.