ANMF seek arbitration over the Tasmanian Government’s push to enforce a 45-minute Transfer of Care policy in Emergency Departments

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (Tasmanian Branch) invites the Tasmanian media to discuss the result of the Tasmanian Industrial Commission hearing on Wednesday morning, February 4.

ANMF Branch Secretary Emily Shepherd said the union had gone to the Commission to seek arbitration over the Tasmanian Government’s push to enforce a 45-minute Transfer of Care policy in Emergency Departments across the State.

“The push to reduce the transfer of patients into overcrowded ED’s with corridor ramping occurring on a daily basis is not timely access to care and fundamentally the only way a further reduction to ambulance off load times can be achieved is by the Government actually investing in access and flow initiatives along with greater capacity, rather than rearranging the waiting room,” Ms Shepherd said.

“We have repeatedly attempted to resolve these issues locally.”

Ms Shepherd said the decision to seek arbitration was necessary to protect staff but importantly patient safety.

“Our members are being asked shift after shift to deliver care in environments that are simply not safe. Patients are being moved into corridors and non-clinical spaces without adequate staffing, monitoring, or equipment, and nurses and their medical colleagues are expected to carry that risk.

“We have tried to resolve this locally, including through Commission directed working groups, but there has been no meaningful engagement.

“Even the region’s Chief Executives have acknowledged the current 60-minute timeframe is routinely not achieved, so forcing a 45-minute mandate would only make an unsafe situation worse.”

Ms Shepherd said the remedies being sought – as preconditions to any change to the current Transfer of Care policy – include:

• Staffing all EDs to their agreed minimum safe staffing levels on every shift
• Ensuring patient transfers occur based on clinical priority, not arbitrary timeframes
• Providing nurses with a formal escalation pathway equivalent to that available to paramedics when they face resourcing challenges
• Immediate implementation of genuine access and flow solutions to address bed block and overcrowding