Involving and training staff

It is important to engage all staff in promoting the Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights in Victoria brochure, and in integrating healthcare rights into their ways of working. Ideas for engaging staff include:

• developing a staff information sheet
• ensuring relevant materials are visible in staff rooms and meeting areas
• including a copy of the brochure in the employment orientation package for new staff
• including discussion of the brochure in orientation and refresher training for staff, and
• running professional development sessions.

Professional development should be targeted to all staff who have contact with patients and consumers, including administrative and other non-clinical staff. Sessions might focus on the following areas:

• Rights covered in the brochure
• Aims and expected outcomes
• Your service’s policies and procedures around realisation of healthcare rights
• Implications for staff
• How the brochure and your services’ own charter, code of ethics or other policy documents can work together
• Roles of the health service provider (staff member), the healthcare service, and consumers in ensuring healthcare rights.

A Powerpoint presentation has been developed for use in staff training on healthcare rights and the Victorian brochure. You could use the presentation as is, or adapt it by adding information relevant to your own healthcare service.  The presentation is available as:

• Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights in Victoria (205kb, pdf)
• Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights in Victoria (354kb, Powerpoint)

Your service might also consider making regular sessions available to staff on using interpreters, as part of communicating about healthcare rights and the brochure, and more broadly to support them in communicating appropriately with patients and consumers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Visit the links page for further information.

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