Log of Claims Summary - May 2022

In negotiation meetings your Blue care delegates have done an excellent job at explaining why your log of claims is so important. They want you to see what they have be telling management about why you deserve better.

• Claim 4: Pay Equity across Uniting Care Queensland
• Claim 6: Review workload management processes and consistently apply (HCPPs)
• Claim 7 Real Commitment to addressing workload demands for AH staff
• Claim 8: Professional Development funding of $1500 per FTE per annum, in addition to mandatory training
• Claim 9: Enable access to clinical supervision and mentoring
• Claim 10: Professional Development leave of 5 days per annum per FTE in addition to mandatory training.
• Claim 11: Conduct a review of existing pay structure and levels and progression to reflect contemporary practice
• Claim 12: Address AH issues in rural and remote areas
• Claim 13: Increased flexibility of start and finish times
• Claim 14: Establish clinical leads within each of the professions/clusters/teams.
• Claim 15: Provide options for a 19-day month and compressed hours (eg 9 day fortnight)
• Claim 17: WHS improvement with special emphasis on occupational violence, workplace environment, psycho-social matters as per the WHS Act
• Claim 35: Five weeks annual leave in line with nurse’s conditions of employment

Claim 4: Pay Equity across Uniting Care Queensland

Delegates are seeking pay parity with Uniting Care Health (UCH). Pay comparison chart detailed below. Queensland Health pay rates provided for comparison purposes.

Uniting Care Australia is the national body for the Uniting Church’s community services network and an agency of the Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia. It includes Uniting Care Queensland under which Blue Care falls. (NB Wesley Mission Qld is part of Uniting Care Australia NOT Uniting Care Queensland).

Uniting Care Queensland – Starting in early 1900s, UnitingCare has helped people across Queensland and Northern Territory live life in all its fullness. UnitingCare is a courageous and creative health and community services provider and one of the largest charities in Australia.

UnitingCare never stand still, adapting to stay ahead of an ever-changing society and confidently speaking out for fairness and justice. In partnership with clients, communities, governments, and other providers, we deliver services characterised by innovation and wisdom.

The UnitingCare ‘family’:

• The Wesley Hospital (UCH)
• St Andrews Hospital (UCH)
• St Stephens Hospital (UCH)
• Buderim Private Hospital (UCH)
• Blue Care
• Lifeline
• ARCCS (Australian Regional & Remote Community Services)

(Taken from Uniting Care Queensland website)

Bluecare sits under the same umbrella organisation as UCH.

Community AH practice requires an advanced skill set at least comparable to, if not more challenging than UCH AH roles. Community AH practice operates with a greater degree of independence/reduced supervision, thus requiring increased experience/ clinical reasoning skills.

Community AH should not be paid less within the same organisation.

Claim 6: Review workload management processes and consistently apply (HCPPs)

During EBA discussions, the delegates shared a HCPP case study that illustrated the challenges faced by HCPPs managing large caseload portfolios across a wide geographic area.

Issues to be addressed:

• Insufficient time buffer for travel, meetings, professional development, quality improvement and care governance.
• Workloads consistently increased when staff are on leave (handover clients)
• Staff onboarding and staff support- in addition to caseload.

Actions expected of Blue care:

• Case management portfolios need to be realistic and achievable, with a balanced caseload mix (levels 1-4) calculated using a standardised tool across Blue care.
• Staff need a buffer for travel, meeting attendance, quality, and compliance tasks.
• Staff responsible for onboarding and providing staff support need adjustment of the case management portfolio that they are responsible for
• Backfill options to be explored for planned leave to avoid increased caseload responsibilities on top of usual caseload.

Claim 7 Real Commitment to addressing workload demands for AH staff

Clause 4.3.1:  BC EBA currently states "The parties to this agreement acknowledge that employees and management have a responsibility to maintain a balanced workload and recognise the adverse effects that excessive workloads have.

Issue: Staff workload is impacted by many factors including:

• inadequate recruitment- rolling job ads, little-no interest/response.
• high staff turnover- resulting in loss of both FTE hours in addition to the added burden of handover clients needing to be allocated to existing therapists.  A compounding effect is seen here.
• Onboarding new staff diverts team resources to significant training hours to get new staff skilled and safe to deliver client care.
• holiday leave coverage.  For example, in a team of eight staff, the service is operating at less than full capacity for 66% of the year.

To run effectively, workload management requires a dynamic and timely response to manage referrals and caseload sharing.  This requires examination of workflows, triage of referrals for clinical priority, management of contracts and monitoring/ allocation of referrals to appropriately trained staff and staff with capacity to provide the service.  In summary, this oversight and leadership requires a work area team representative, “clinical lead”

Our current EBA identifies the presence of a work area team representative, however in many clinical services this task is undertaken informally and without remuneration.  We want this role formalised.

 Action:

• Introduce clinical leads within AH teams to support staff onboarding, clinical support and workflow management of day-to-day operations. (This model has been very effectively used in the Toowoomba AH team where 3 clinical leads (TLs) had oversight of 25 staff. In this team, the PT team leader had oversight of PTs, EPs and physio AHAs, OT TL -8-9 OTs + OT AHA, Specialty TL role (SP, Dietetics, Social Work, Psychology, extra quality duties).
• Timely closure of waitlists
• Blue care to adopt high priority recruitment strategies
• Backfill planned leave (create additional staffing)

Claim 8: Professional Development funding of $1500 per FTE per annum, in addition to mandatory training

AH professionals carry diverse, complex caseloads- all staff need to actively keep up to date across diverse areas of professional practice.

Historically, there have been issues with fairness and equity when accessing CPD opportunities.

If staff knew in advance what training was available, this would facilitate forward planning.

Actions:

• $1500 per FTE, pro rata for PT staff.
• Manager approval to ensure training relates to the professional role.
• Funds do not accumulate year on year.
• This is a standard market offering for CPD and keeps us competitive.

Claim 9: Enable access to clinical supervision and mentoring

Claim 9 includes clinical supervision and mentoring for ALL AH staff, not just regional and remote staff.

The primary focus is safety and quality of healthcare and a supportive learning environment designed to enhance performance.

It is vital to commit adequate resources to effective supervision since the quality of supervision can have a fundamental impact on the safety and quality of a client’s management and health outcomes as well as the professional conduct and development of colleagues.

A suggested model was presented outlining the recommended frequency of clinical supervision relative to length of experience.

New graduates (first 12 months): 1-2 hrs/week 

Caseloads require such a diverse skill set for routine referrals that increased support is required in the first 12 months for risk management/care governance.

Recent graduates (up to 2 years uninterrupted clinical experience and experienced professionals returning to work or starting clinical practice in a new area): 1-2 hours/fortnight

Hours may be increased in circumstances requiring acquisition of a new skill area (e.g. commencing a new specialisation) or moving into a new work setting.

All clinicians > 2 years uninterrupted clinical practice and advanced skills in areas relevant to workplace requirements: 1-2 hrs/month-6weeks

A model of clinical supervision is also expected to demonstrate the organisation’s duty of care to employees and have a positive impact on staff morale, support the recruitment and retention of high-calibre clinical practitioners, and ultimately enhance the delivery of quality health care services to key stakeholders.

Claim 10: Professional Development leave of 5 days per annum per FTE in addition to mandatory training.

AH staff are a diverse group with diverse professional registration requirements.Equity of access to training has varied. It is important that staff can plan CPD training in advance.

Blue care does not provide training that can be counted towards professional registration CPD quotas

Historical best practice meetings (Biannual, 1 day discipline specific catch ups) allowed for professional networking and collaboration- sharing of knowledge, unified approach to professional issues. Currently, AH staff are working in silos- resources and knowledge are not easily shared.

Seek to reintroduce bi-annual best practice events with AHPs encouraged to attend at least one/year. (this could account for 2 of 5 days PD leave).

Remaining CPD activities at AHP discretion with manager approval.

Claim 11: Conduct a review of existing pay structure and levels and progression to reflect contemporary practice.

Delegates are seeking a similar classification and progression structure as Uniting Care Health. Blue care’s existing progression structure is flawed.

Action:

We want a simpler, more streamlined progression from PO2 to PO3 with local level sign off (must include representation from AH).

• CV
• continuous professional development activities
• clinical case study
• one quality improvement activity
• completion of mandatory training
• successful performance reviews

Total Experience to Count (EBA clause 6.2 )

Change wording of the EBA so that there is less ambiguity.

Case study presented: We had a physio join our service with 2 years 11 months experience. They commenced on a PO2.2 and needed to wait a full 12 months before moving up a pay point.

EBA should read “total experience to count at commencement and for progression between pay points. This experience is to be regardless of employer and based on hours of service in a professional role. 1976 hrs/year FTE; 1200hrs/yr PTE including paid leave”.

Claim 12: This claim was originally “Ensure consistency across professions and services”

It was changed to: Address AH issues in rural and remote areas.

Actions:

• Introduce a rural/remote loading (as per Qld Health offering)
• Introduce professional development loading- additional $500 if in a rural area (ie $2000/year/FTE; additional $1000 in remote areas (ie $2500/year/FTE) to off-set travel and accommodation costs when accessing CPD.
• Adopt a formal clinical supervision model, with clinical supervision provided by a suitably qualified allied health professional (as per Claim 9)

Provision of organisational supervision. If line supervisor is not AH background, need to also have a link to an AH line manager to ensure flow of AH specific information.

In addition,

Seek equal employment opportunities within Bluecare for managerial and clinical support roles. Remove the need for APHRA registration in recruitment adverts and include a more general statement like “holds appropriate professional registration in a health discipline”

This request pertains specifically to AH disciplines- Social Workers, Dieticians and Exercise Physiologists who are not APHRA registered health professionals but do have their own specific professional registration bodies.

Claim 13: Increased flexibility of start and finish times

AHPs do their own scheduling.

Needs to be flexibility of start and finish times. Current KRONOS system is increasing staff stress and may be contributing to some unsafe behaviours eg rushing to work.

Phone cookies already provide transparency and can be used for performance monitoring.

Action:

Seek pay by exception approach. This is already standard practice for HCPPs/ LPs.

If extra time is worked on a particular day (to attend to work requirements) there should be capacity to adjust work arrangements so that the correct base roster is worked within the pay period (manager would be consulted).

This generates no cost to the organisation but would greatly reduce staff stress, improve flexibility and reduce admin load.

Claim 14: Establish clinical leads within each of the professions/clusters/teams.

Bluecare have stripped out PO4 clinical specialist role. There has been a notable loss of knowledge/skills.

Action:

Appoint Clinical leads and Clinical specialists (2 different job descriptions) at PO4 level, based on merit, not position availability.

Clinical leads - operational staff support as well as staff development and training, safety and risk management, care governance

Clinical specialists: recognising staff with specialised professional knowledge that is operationally relevant at a local and state-wide level.

There should be no limitation on the number of PO4s/team- Based on merit.

Claim 15: Provide options for a 19-day month and compressed hours (eg 9 day fortnight)

Action: The current EBA clause 3.2.a be enacted/extended to include not only an ADO (19 x 8hr days per month) which is currently in the agreement, but to also include the option of a 9 day fortnight RDO.

This helps staff to maintain work life balance.

Claim 17: WHS improvement with special emphasis on occupational violence, workplace environment, psycho-social matters as per the WHS Act.

The issue:

• Existing policies and procedures are not consistently enacted across the organisation. Cultural change is needed.
• Seek cultural change. Stronger on-boarding/training: What one staff member allows will impact on all colleagues into the future.
• Dr Black cannot be relied on. Phones may not be answered.

Actions:

• Blue care to actively promote cultural change around lone worker safety: issues of animals, smoking, staff security. SABA online modules are not resulting in cultural change.
• Re-instigate WHS officers and WHS reps
• Discuss WHS as part of a consultative committee
• Blue care to explore use of duress alarms or equivalent technology strategy for sole workers.

Claim 35: Five weeks annual leave in line with nurse’s conditions of employment.

Action: We are seeking parity.

AH workers/CSS employees value to the organisation needs to be recognised and we are of the view this is one way the employer can demonstrate that recognition.