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A Year in Review for the PERIOD 1 July 2015 – 30 JUNE 2016

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A Year in Review for the PERIOD 1 July 2015 – 30 JUNE 2016 2015-16: A year in review FOR THE PERIOD 1 JULY 2015 – 30 JUNE 2016 Report OF THE QUEENSLAND NURSES’ UNION OF EMployees AND Australian NURSING AND MIDWIFERY Federation (QNU BRANCH) 35th ANNUAL CONFERENCE 13-15 JULY 2016 BRISBANE CONVENTION AND EXHIBITION CENTRE Introduction It’s quite surprising when you begin to look back over the year’s events to realise just how much you can squeeze into 12 months. Let’s take a moment to reflect. This year … We made history by securing legislated nurse-to-patient and midwife-to-patient ratios. We finalised public sector award modernisation without loss of conditions. We took the public sector EB9 to ballot. Beth Mohle We engaged in one of the longest federal election campaigns in Australian history. In any other year, any one of these would have been achievement enough—but to have all of them come to fruition in one year is quite the feat. And it doesn’t end there. While those big issues were in the spotlight, the important day-to-day work of our union has also been tracking very well. Our membership numbers have reached a record 56,000, we’ve negotiated 34 private, aged care and other enterprise agreements, our social media community has doubled since last year, and our member services and legal team have increased their caseload by about 25%. While it is true the absence of a truly adversarial state government did allow us to turn our focus elsewhere, the secret to our successes this year, and every year, runs deeper than that. It comes down to who we are and the values we hold dear. As the peak professional and industrial organisation for nurses and midwives in Queensland we have a responsibility to harness our nursing and midwifery power in defence of our patients and residents, our profession and our rights. And we take this responsibility seriously. We always do. We are not an organisation that accepts complacency or inertia—our values encourage us to step up, to be proactive and lead. So I truly believe the accomplishments we have seen this year are not merely due to a shift in the tone of our relationship with the government, but rather the product of our natural inclination to roll up our collective sleeves, draw on our professional expertise, and on our strength, integrity and power to make change happen. Our goal this year was to rebuild hope and reclaim our place as leaders and advocates within the health care system, and I think it’s clear we have made excellent progress. The focus now is on consolidating our achievements and building on them. Beth Contents Direction and focus 2 Organisational 6 Industrial 10 Professional 18 Social 22 Political 27 Democratic 34 Direction and focus STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE: Promote the QNU’s vision, mission and values in all aspects of its strategic operations. It has been a strong year for the QNU as we were able After so many years of campaigning and political to get back to basics and focus on a number of big lobbying for safe workloads, an important milestone ticket items for our union without the distraction of a had been reached—ratios were now law. state government trying to tear us down. But every law needs groundwork, and the groundwork That’s not to say we didn’t face challenges, but rather, for this law was done by nurses and midwives. we weren’t being attacked on multiple fronts and More than 600 QNU members wrote to us about how having our valuable resources directed away from the ratios would make a difference to their daily working key initiatives we wanted to address. lives and to patient safety—and many of these were The upshot of this is that we were able to pour our included in our submission into the ratios bill energies into a number of issues close to our heart— inquiry. some of which have long been on our “to do” list. In addition to this, a number of QNU members showed true commitment and bravery by personally fronting Ratios Save Lives the hearings and giving evidence to the committee, Our biggest achievement this year was securing telling them first-hand about the danger of excessive legislated nurse-to-patient, midwife-to-patient ratios. workloads and how ratios will greatly reduce the risk to On 1 December Health Minister Cameron Dick nurses, midwives and our patients. introduced the Hospital and Health Boards (Safe Nurse- It takes great courage to front a parliamentary inquiry To-Patient and Midwife-To-Patient Ratios) Amendment as they can be quite adversarial, so I was so very proud Bill 2015 to parliament for its first reading. of those members who stood up and presented such Not only was this an important step for our campaign, raw and compelling evidence. it was also an historic moment for nursing and It was an enormous privilege to watch these nursing midwifery in Queensland and our role as advocates for and midwifery leaders in action. patient safety. And while these activist members were presenting the The bill legislated for a minimum of one nurse to four very real human face of our ratios campaign, they were patients during morning and afternoon shifts, and one being supported by the expertise and resources of our nurse to seven patients during night shifts in prescribed union—Organisers, Professional Officers, Industrial locations in Queensland public health facilities. Officers, Researchers, Communications, Campaigning These locations will cover 80% of medical and surgical and Training officials, and other staff. beds in Queensland. In the past few months since the legislation was It took a good 18 months of campaigning, lobbying, passed we have been working with Queensland Health and negotiating to see the Bill pass into law, which of to finalise the two core elements of the legislative course it did on International Nurses Day, 12 May, this package—the Regulation and the Standard. year. These components contain additional details on the Those of us who sat in the Queensland Parliament introduction of ratios and on the supporting workload gallery for the long debate before the vote was taken, management tool, the Business Planning Framework struggled to contain our emotions. (BPF). This has not been an easy process and we have had a number of debates over rostering and other issues around the application of the new law. While we are not entirely satisfied with the final shape of the implementation plan, we do believe it is the RATIOS start of what, over time, will become a systemic change to the way nursing workloads are managed, and it gives us a firm basis not only for growing the ratios concept within public health but also more broadly into private SAVE LIVES and aged care spheres. 2 2015-16: A YEAR IN REVIEW DIRECTION AND FOCUS Celebrating on the steps of Parliament House after the ratios bill was passed. The result of all of this is that imperfections Conducted jointly by the ANMF, Flinders University notwithstanding, Queensland is now the fourth and the University of South Australia, the project was jurisdiction in the world to legislate minimum ratios designed to establish evidence-based tools to inform after California, Victoria, and Wales—and with that staffing and skills mix requirements in the aged care comes great responsibility. industry. While the legislation is now technically in effect, the The researchers were particularly interesting in the ultimate success of the legislation needs nurses and type and frequency of aged care interventions that midwives to play their part in ensuring facilities comply were incomplete or missed and the reasons why. with it. The data they collected would provide a snapshot of the We will be working with nurses on the floor over the adequacy of current staffing levels and skill mix in aged next few months to really get this reporting process care, and build an evidence-based case for a consistent and the escalation process bedded down. aged care staffing and skills mix model in Australia. From our perspective it is critical that in sites where This was a timely activity for us in light of the work we ratios do apply, any workload issue that arises is dealt were already doing in our Ratios campaign with respect with swiftly and the spirit of ratios defended vigorously, to securing an RN on shift 24/7 in every aged care and to that end we are working on ways of simplifying facility across the state. the reporting process and ensuring our members feel The public visibility of our campaign for public sector confident and empowered to take whatever steps ratios gave us an excellent platform from which to necessary to preserve those hard won ratios. highlight the need for more RNs in aged care, and it certainly was a claim that gained traction in the wider A focus on aged care community. This year was also a year in which aged care was a particular focus. Aged Care Senate Inquiry Of course, given the multitude of issues affecting aged In March, QNU made a comprehensive submission care the sector is rarely out of our sights, but this year to the Senate Inquiry on the future of aged care in there were a number of events at a state and federal Australia. level that enabled us to shine a light on our concerns Our submission focussed on the implementation of more broadly. professional nursing standards and quality of care in Late last year we ran focus groups in Brisbane and the aged care sector, including the recommendation via teleconference as part of the National Aged Care that it be mandatory for aged care facilities to have a Staffing and Skills Mix Project.
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