Tami Photinos, Acting Chief Operating Officer

Dear STARS Staff,

Thank you again to everyone who participated in the staff engagement sessions as part of the spinal impact analysis. The project team collated all the feedback into a draft report which was recently presented to the STARS Executive Leadership Team.

Key concerns raised by staff included:

• Inability to accurately identify the true impact without understanding what the governance of QSCIS would be in the STARS and Metro North Health context.
• Impact on STARS and RBWH culture and workforce, including staff well-being and retention.
• Reduction in STARS rehabilitation bed capacity, reducing access to timely rehabilitation for Metro North Health patients.
• Impact to acute and rehabilitation flow across the Hospital and Health Service.
• Patient safety concerns managing patients with tracheostomy or ventilator-dependent patients, particularly responding to deterioration.
• Potential for increased workload across the workforce.
• Staff and service impacts relating to requirements for extensive upskilling / providing clinical services to a new patient cohort with specialised skill requirements.
• Additional care requirements of the SCI patient group across RBWH and STARS and the additional load this would place on services. Also, some sub-specialty medical services and surgical interventions accessed by patients with an SCI at the PAH are not easily replicated at STARS or RBWH due to a deficit in highly specialised skills.
• Inadequate office space and clinic space to accommodate QSCIS staff and patients.

Please be reassured that this is a high-level summary and the very detailed information that staff have provided during the staff engagement sessions has been captured and will be available if required in the future.

I recognise that participation in the engagement sessions has taken up not only staff’s valuable time but also their mental energy and for many it has been an unsettling and uncertain time. I encourage staff to reach out if they need support. Please contact STARS Staff Psychologist, Allison Welch on 3647 6942 or Allison.welch@health.qld.gov.au), your line manager, or the Peer Responder Program at STARS. Staff also have access to the Employee Assistance Program, Benestar (1300 360 364).

The Department of Health team compiled a report for the Director-General, Queensland Health and the Minister for Health, at the end of last month. We are now awaiting a decision on the next steps. We will endeavour to let you know of this decision as soon as we are made aware of it.

I will be holding a second vidcast for staff with the Acting Executive Director STARS, Dale Dally-Watkins tomorrow, Wednesday 2 August 2.00-2.30pm to provide an update and opportunity for questions. More details on how to join the vidcast have been emailed out to staff.

If you would like more information or still have questions you can email the project team Leah Vegh and Maddison Muir on MNHSpinalImpactAnalysis@health.qld.gov.au or call 0419 316 245. You can also view the FAQs factsheet which answers commonly asked questions from the staff engagement sessions.

Kind regards,

Tami.