Medical registration, indemnity insurance
Your appointment for medical practice at Epworth is conditional upon compliance with Epworth By-laws, including:
- Maintaining continuous registration with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) pursuant to the Health Practitioners Registration Act 2005 and if any conditions change for your registration you must immediately notify the Accreditation team at Medical Services
- Holding valid indemnity insurance for your scope of practice. A copy of this certificate must be provided annually to the Accreditation team
- Fulfilling the Obligations upon Appointed Practitioners contained in Section 2 of the Epworth By-laws
Working with children certificate
Any employed Medical Practitioner undertaking direct clinical care (of any patient, including children) must supply a valid Working With Children check to the Accreditation team.
Any non-employed Medical Practitioner with an approved Scope of Clinical Practice which includes direct clinical care of children must supply a valid Working With Children check. Specifically, in addition a Working With Children check must be supplied for a medical practitioner in any of the following specialties irrespective of incidence of direct clinical care of children:
- Emergency Medicine (ED also retain a copy for their records)
- Paediatric Medicine
- Immunology & Allergy
- Intensive Care
- Obstetrics
In addition, any medical practitioner meeting either of the following criteria must also supply a valid Working With Children Check.
- Selection of Tier B Scope of Clinical Practice specifying that they will be having direct clinical care of a child (under 18)
- Participation in an Epworth on call roster whereby presenting cases may include patients under 18 years old
Non-employed Doctors In Training and Surgical Assistants (who are appropriately accredited at Epworth) will be required to provide Working With Children check details in line with the defined Scope of Practice for their professional group. This will be defined through the Group Medical Advisory Committee.
Further information is available in the Working With Children Policy.
Please note that you will need to be logged into the Staff Portal to access policies.
Accreditation/Medical Workforce team at Medical Services
- Phone: 03 9426 8591
- Fax: 03 9914 8760
- [email protected]
Ethical standards
As a Medical Specialist you are expected to act with professionalism in all your dealings for and on behalf of Epworth HealthCare including compliance with the:
- AMA code of Ethics
- Good Medical Practice published by the Australian Medical Council and endorsed by the Medical Board of Australia
Values and behaviours
As a condition of appointment all appointed medical practitioners are expected to comply with uphold Epworth’s Values and Behaviours:
- Respect
- Excellence
- Community
- Compassion
- Integrity
- Accountability
Confidentiality
You will be required to comply with Epworth HealthCare’s confidentiality policy which specifies that you will not, at any time during your period of employment or after its termination, except by the direction of Epworth HealthCare and except insofar as may be necessary in the course of your appointment, divulge either directly or indirectly to any persons, company or companies for any purpose, any confidential information or knowledge which you may acquire during the course of/or incidental to your appointment and shall at all times keep confidential all secrets of Epworth HealthCare, its associated companies and its patients.
Any information of any type acquired by you in the course of/or incidental to your appointment regarding patient health and care, the business, transactions, affairs, property, policy, processes or activities of Epworth HealthCare and its associated companies shall be treated by you as confidential information. This includes (without limiting the generality of the foregoing) the medical condition of patients, the reason for their admission to the hospital, the treatment they are receiving, the doctor(s) from whom they are receiving the treatment and their prognosis, patient and doctor lists. This also includes; designs or technical drawings, proofs and prints, computer software and programs, know how, ideas, diagrams, tables, marketing and personal information not in the public domain other than the contents of this Agreement.
Conflict resolution, harassment and bullying
Epworth has in place a set of fundamental principles and requirements that govern the ethics and standards of behaviour that are expected from all people who work for and within the organisation. We treat all people with respect, dignity, compassion, courtesy, honesty and fairness, regardless of differences of role, values, beliefs, gender, race or age.
Epworth has an overarching suite of policies and protocols concerning bullying and harassment and Epworth management is vigilant about not condoning bullying and harassment by any individual and has a zero tolerance policy towards it. Allegations from staff or patients about inappropriate behaviour can be made through several mechanisms, including reports to the staff member’s manager, letters of complaint from patients or family, entries in RiskMan, reports to senior management, and notifications under the Whistleblower Act. All notifications will be investigated and action taken.
All staff at Epworth including medical practitioners (both salaried staff and visiting medical officers) are required to ‘sign on’ to Epworth’s Values and Behaviours Statement as a condition of appointment. In the ‘Respect’ section doctors confirm that:
- “I treat others with sensitivity and dignity”
- “I value and accept others’ differences”
- “I treat others as I would wish to be treated”
- “I always try to challenge those who bully, intimidate, undermine or blame others“
In situations of unresolvable conflict and workplace issues, the Executive Director and your relevant Medical Director, MAC representative and Clinical Institute Director are all available for assistance with escalation.
Policies
Please note that you will need to be logged into the Staff Portal to access these policies:
- Prevention of Workplace Bullying Policy
- Prevention of Workplace Bullying Protocol
- Code of Conduct - includes Epworth's Values and Behaviours
- Work Health and Safety Policy
- Whistleblower Policy