Up to 43 Canberra Health Services workers were assaulted while on home visits in 2024. Photo: Miodrag Ignjatovic.
Canberra Health Services is promising changes to its home-visit service after two of its workers were physically assaulted within the space of three weeks while visiting patients. It’s warned that repeat offenders may have their care withdrawn.
In a letter sent to staff on Friday (14 March), CHS CEO Dave Peffer said a “number of team members” were assaulted while undertaking home visits in recent weeks “and both resulted in injuries”.
He said the incidents were reported to Worksafe ACT “as required”, and it’s expected the workplace health and safety regulator will respond with “a series of improvement and prohibition notices to the health services in the days ahead”.
“We’ve yet to see the details of the notices from the regulator, but one thing is clear – these notices will reset the risk threshold the health services must follow when undertaking home visits.
“They’ll … provide a series of conditions to be met before team members can enter homes to provide care.”
CHS staff conducted about 120,000 home visits last year, and of these, 43 were exposed to “occupational violence” in the form of physical or verbal abuse, or both.
“Team, that’s 43 too many,” Mr Peffer wrote.
“As an organisation, we’ve let our team members down – and for that I am deeply sorry.”
In a subsequent interview with Region, Mr Peffer wouldn’t go into details about the cases but said “we’ve had a sequence of incidents in just over two weeks … of a serious nature”, both involving physical abuse of the CHS staff member.
“A lot of Canberrans benefit from an alternative to an inpatient setting or a preventative measure from being in hospital, and they’re very welcoming. They’re great patients.
“But unfortunately, that’s not always the case. For some individuals, we will have to take a much harder line in terms of what we will tolerate.”
Canberra Health Services CEO Dave Peffer addressing a media conference in June 2023. Photo: Claire Fenwicke.
The changes, many of which came into effect from this week, are headlined by a “much broader” risk-assessment process.
This takes into account any history of aggression the patient might have, as well as behavioural changes, cognitive issues (like delirium or hallucinations), substance abuse and even possession of weapons on the premises.
“It’s been standard practice for us for a long time to undertake a risk assessment of the individual and of their home, but now it needs to be much broader,” Mr Peffer said.
“It needs to look at not just the patient who we’re going to visit, but also other family members who may be in the immediate proximity … and I think this may come as a shock to many people, but we need to ask about weapons that could be in the house.”
If too many red flags go up during this process, CHS will withdraw its home-based care and require the patient to present to a healthcare centre or hospital instead.
“If that’s not possible, unfortunately we will have to withdraw those services.”
Whereas before a team member could make this assessment, the changes now require a manager to sign off on them, too.
“What we’re saying to the manager is, ‘Are you happy to accept the risk of your team member going in?’ So it’s not just an individual assessment – it’s now considered by multiple people – to really make sure that if someone’s heading into a home to provide some care, we are absolutely confident that we’ve done everything we possibly can to keep them safe.”
During an altercation, workers can press a button on duress devices they wear around their neck, which also includes the option to do an audio recording. The audio is then relayed in real time to a 24-hour help desk, which can send help. However, wearing the device requires consent from the patient first.
“I expect that WorkSafe will want from us much greater certainty around consent for these devices to be worn and used in homes, and where we can’t obtain that consent – if someone’s unwilling for us to wear a device like that – we might have to step back and say, ‘Is this a safe environment?'”
Mr Peffer said CHS’s team leaders have been engaging with the union as well as Worksafe throughout the process.
“It’s a bit of a sad situation when you’re having to head down this path – with team members who really go above and beyond every single day to provide care in the community and this is a risk they face – it’s disappointing.”
