You might have heard about the recent changes to how we recruit and retain staff. Our HR teams are continuing to support the responsible workforce management arrangements across the HHS. If you have questions about the process, your directorate HR business partners will be able to assist you.

Temporary to Permanent Conversion

Following the publishing of new Employment Directives late in 2020, Metro North made a decision to conduct an ad hoc review of up to 3000 Metro North fixed term temporary and casual employees with more than two years’ service for consideration for permanent employment. A project team commenced work on this in late November and have recently been able to recommend offers of permanent employment to 270 Metro North employees from the first round of reviews.

The project team expect to be recommending further offers of permanent employment over the February to April period. Alongside this work, fixed term temporary and casual employees with more than one years’ service are able to apply for conversion to permanent employment, and Metro North will continue to review eligibility for conversion to permanent employment at the two year service anniversary of fixed term temporary and casual employment. Metro North continues to support the Queensland Government policy of employment security.

Senior temporary appointments

Peter Patmore has joined Metro North as the Acting Executive Director Human Resources pending further recruitment. Peter has worked in various HR roles across Queensland Health, most recently as the Executive Director People, Culture and Planning at North West HHS and Executive Director Workforce at Central Queensland HHS.

Aaron Suthers is currently Acting Director of Metro North Legal Services. Aaron has worked in Metro North Legal Services for a number of years and is extremely familiar with the organisation. I’d like to thank Nicola Ellis for her work acting in the role.

Online privacy and confidentiality training

To ensure we keep personal information secure and share it when appropriate, we have developed online privacy training now available for all Metro North staff.

This course will walk you through a range of scenarios that focus on:

• the privacy principles and the research governance process
• protecting patient information from unauthorised access and accidental disclosure
• the importance of privacy and patient confidentiality in building public trust

Hear from Metro North executives on the importance of privacy and how to protect personal and patient information. This valuable training reminds us to take the necessary steps to ensure information remains secure. Take the training here.

And on a personal note, for those who have wondered about my change of name, Andy and I were able to squeeze a wedding in before Christmas after the restrictions were lifted.

Have a great week,

Melissa Carter
Chief Finance and Corporate Officer