Launceston General Hospital report: 92 recommendations to be adopted

The embattled hospital’s “senior executive management team” showed a “level of inertia” in engaging with the review and a “lack of the responsive leadership” needed to fix the woes.

Launceston General Hospital. Picture: File

Launceston General Hospital’s senior executive management team displayed a “level of inertia” and “appeared to lack... the responsive leadership necessary to drive change at the local level” in the wake of the Commission of Inquiry, a report has found.

The Independent Safe Child Governance Review of the Launceston General Hospital and Human Resources report, publicly released on Wednesday, made 92 recommendations.

Premier Jeremy Rockliff said on Wednesday afternoon the state government would implement each of them.

“I was devastated by what we heard throughout the Commission of Inquiry. While we cannot change the past – I’ve said many time we failed our children in this state over successive decades – we can change the future,” Mr Rockliff said.

Health secretary Kathrine Morgan-Wicks said some of the key changes being implemented included “full-time resources for child safety liaison at the LGH and a dedicated child-safe unit to support reporting and training in child safety”.

All DoH staff must undertake child safety training by June 30, 2023 and there would be improved processes to proactively encourage and support the reporting of incidents.

A new position, Chief Executive – Hospitals North has also been created to help implement the changes. It will be filled by Jen Duncan, who performed the role on an interim basis.

Ms Morgan-Wicks said there would be “independent oversight” of the implementation of the recommendations.

The review was commissioned in August in the wake of terrible revelations at the Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings, especially regarding the hospital’s harbouring of paedophile nurse James Geoffrey Griffin.

Peter Renshaw, the then-executive director of medical services at Launceston General Hospital, giving evidence to Tasmania's child sexual abuse commission of inquiry. Picture: File

While, since 2019, the Department of Health had undertaken “significant” work to strengthen child safety procedures and there was now in place “exemplary policy frameworks and incident reporting systems”.

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However, the same could not be said of the hospital’s senior levels, which copped a lashing from the review’s co-chairs.

“Despite these state led changes, we found a level of inertia present in the engagement of the senior executive management team at the LGH in making changes locally, and with the review itself,” co-chairs Adjunct Professor Debora Picone AO and Adjunct Professor Karen Crawshaw PSM.

Premier and Health Minister Jeremy Rockliff speaking to the media at Parliament Square in Hobart on Thursday, November 24, 2022. Picture: File

“From our perspective, there appeared to be a lack of the responsive leadership necessary to drive change at the local level.

“At the LGH we found poor governance systems and responses, ill-defined executive and clinician accountabilities, an absence of strong organisational leadership, clinical leaders struggling to deliver necessary reforms such as implementing patient safety and quality systems, inadequate risk management and complaints management, some loss of confidence in the incident management system and failure to escalate and adequately deal with serious complaints.”

Paedophile nurse James (Jim) Geoffrey Griffin. Picture: File

Other key recommendations of the review include:

– The executive and clinical leadership team of the LGH join with the secretary and executive of the department (to undertake) an annual review of child safety and wellbeing status confirmed through a publicly reported attestation statement.

– The One Health Leadership and Management Training, including people management training on how to have difficult conversations and manage staff grievances, be prioritised for those frontline and middle managers at the LGH who have not yet undertaken any structured leadership or management training.

– A LGH Culture Improvement Advisory Group be established which includes staff and managers, chaired by Chief Executive Hospitals North, and supported by HR Business Partner. Regular progress reports on implementation of local action plans be provided to staff from the Group. This should occur at least biannually. Membership of the LGH Culture Improvement Advisory Group to include First Nations and Diversity Inclusion identified positions.

– All leaders and managers at the LGH prioritise child safety as part of broader patient safety. Managers should be accountable through their performance agreements and reviews for the timely completion of mandatory training on child safety and reporting requirements by their staff.

Originally published as Launceston General Hospital report: 92 recommendations to be adopted