Director-General Ian Maynard – Doctor contracts update 18 March 2014.
Transcript.
Hi. I’d like to update you on the progress of discussions with doctors and representatives of doctors that’s been occurring over the last few days.
The focus of last week’s discussion was to ensure that the government understood the concerns and issues that doctors have with the proposed contracts, and to outline possible solutions to those concerns.
I’m pleased to say that at yesterday’s meeting, which was the last of our discussions, that the government proposes to amend the contract through an addendum to reflect all of the solutions that had been discussed the prior week.
Now, an addendum will have the same effect on a contract that a variation has – it’s just as binding on parties as the substantive terms of the contract. In broad terms, the solutions that will be included within this addendum cover the D-G’s powers and the Minister has committed to considering changes to the Hospital and Health Boards Act to constrain the powers of the Director-General to be able to make changes to the contract that benefit employees and that any changes that might have a negative or detrimental effect are only done through agreement.
We focussed also on the issue of dismissals and termination and I’m pleased to say that the contract will reflect a dispute process, that if a doctor is not happy with the basis of termination, that a dispute can be registered with the Director-General and I will appoint a Deputy-President from the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC) on a private capacity, to consider that appeal.
Similarly, with disputes, the contract already has clauses that cover mediation and alternative dispute resolution, but if a doctor chooses to have binding arbitration as their method of resolving any dispute, then that can also escalate up to the Director-General and a Deputy-President from the QIRC will also be engaged to hear that dispute. The outcome of that dispute will be a binding outcome on the Hospital and Health Service.
The addendum will also cover concerns raised by doctors in relation to the rights of a Hospital and Health Service to change rosters and to transfer or change the location of a doctor. These changes can now be done only by agreement. It’s important to realise that agreement can’t be unreasonably withheld and the addendum will include examples of reasonable conditions, such as childcare arrangements, such as unreasonable or negative outcomes on patients of a roster change.
So, I ask you to consider the addendum when it comes out. We have invited representatives from the AMA (Australian Medical Association), from ASMOF Australia (Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation), ASMOF Queensland and Together Queensland, as well as the SMO Taskforce, to work with us on constructing the terms and conditions of this addendum to the contract. I look forward to being able to circulate that to you in the next few days.