More progress made in HP implementation

Delegates from the QPSU and LHMU have been negotiating with Queensland Health around the methodology for centrally evaluating the work of all Health Practitioners.

After several weeks of discussion, the parties agreed to seek external assistance through the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC), to move the discussions towards a final agreed evaluation methodology.

The first step in this process was to negotiate a “relationships chart” to outline all the different groups discussed in the Health Practitioner Agreement and their interactions and linkages with each other. On Friday 18th July unions called on Queensland Health to provide formal agreement to the relationships chart which had been jointly drafted and considered by the parties. Queensland Health has agreed to the chart, a welcome development for all parties. Visit www.qpsu.org.au/hp for a copy of the relationship chart as agreed.

While we now have a relationships chart, there are still a number of outstanding issues to work through with Queensland Health and these will continue to be discussed and resolved through the QIRC.

QPSU representatives expect that these discussions will continue for approximately two more weeks and hope that at the end of that period there will be a set of agreed documents which will allow the start of the substantive evaluation process.

More updates will be provided as the parties reach agreement on other matters.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: DISCIPLINE REPRESENTATIVES EOI PROCESS

The HP Agreement requires that there must be relevant discipline input into the Phase 2 evaluation process. Consequently there will shortly be an open Expression of Interest process whereby any interested Health Practitioner can apply to take on the role of Discipline Representative for the work level evaluation panels for their discipline.

The role will involve being able to provide the discipline context as well as expert discipline input into the evaluation of proposed Role Descriptions. Therefore the discipline representatives will need to have a well grounded understanding of the scope of the discipline across Queensland Health as well as currency of practice and expert content knowledge about the discipline.

The Expression of Interest process should commence in the next week and there will be a short turn around time (approximately one week) to allow for the endorsement, relevant training and evaluation process to commence as soon as possible.

The selection of discipline representatives will occur through a joint Union and Management decision making process by the Health Practitioner Interest Based Bargaining Group.