CHS has several programs allowing people to be treated by nurses and allied health staff in their homes. Photo: Claire Fenwicke.
Canberra Health Services (CHS) has confirmed some health home visits “may no longer go ahead” in the wake of physical assaults and WorkSafe ACT intervention.
The workplace regulator was notified in March that “a number of team members” were seriously assaulted during home visits, resulting in five improvement notices and a prohibition notice being issued.
One of the notices stated the situations faced by staff had resulted in physical and psychological harm, and they had the “serious potential to result in the death of a person”.
The staff who were physically assaulted required medical care, CHS CEO Dave Peffer confirmed.
“Even though we’ve proactively made safety-based decisions before the notices were issued … we acknowledge that we needed to strengthen our protocols, and we’ve worked closely with the regulator to do this,” he said.
The team members impacted have since returned to work.
The notices – related to risk assessments, staff training and the type and use of duress devices used during home visits – have been lifted, although a WorkSafe ACT investigation into the incidents is ongoing.
Mr Peffer said no home visiting programs stopped during the notice period; however, some individual visits did not go ahead as CHS was “not able to ensure the safety of our team members”.
“As a result of the workplace notices, we have made changes to our safety systems to help ensure the safety of our team members while they care for patients in their home,” he said.
“These changes will impact the way we deliver home visits, and some home visits may no longer go ahead.
“In these instances, we will utilise alternatives such as our community-based facilities where a home visit is not feasible, and the impact on individual services will be varied.”
Changes to the protocols include strengthening the home visiting risk assessment tool, ensuring team members have completed mandatory training before going on a home visit, making sure staff have a duress device and that their managers know where they are at all times, and making sure staff were aware of their team’s code word if their duress devices weren’t available or working.
Mr Peffer said work would continue to seek to improve safety and reduce the incidence of occupational violence.
“These incidents don’t just impact the individuals involved but the whole team, and potentially other patients,” Mr Peffer said.
“Any assault is one too many.”
Health unions agree, but want CHS to go further when it comes to protecting staff.
Community and Public Sector Union ACT secretary Maddy Northam (representing allied health staff) said it wasn’t good enough that it took an “unprecedented prohibition notice” for action to be taken.
“We’ve been alerting Canberra Health Services to the dangers facing our workers for more than two years now,” she said.
“Unfortunately it took [the] improvement and prohibition notices to do anything about it.”
Ms Northam explained that while most home visits went smoothly, and that the staff loved being able to provide care in people’s homes, it was those rare instances that had workers worried.
Usually it was the unknown factor of friends or family in a patient’s home that could pose a threat of aggression or violence.
“We’ve had workers threatened with guns, bow and arrows, axes, a lot of knives, dirty needles, machetes is a common one … [and] it’s almost been normalised by some workers,” Ms Northam said.
She commended CHS for how quickly changes were implemented in response to WorkSafe’s notices, describing the processes as “a lot better”.
But there are still areas of concern, particularly around staff going on home visits alone rather than in pairs.
“A duress device doesn’t compare to having two people in the field,” Ms Northam said.
