MEDICUS May 2022

4 M E D I C U S M AY 2 0 2 2 SNAPSHOTS W O R K P L A C E R E L A T I O N S MAKING TIME FOR NON-CLINICAL TIME SICK AND CARER’S LEAVE TO BECOME ‘PERSONAL’ P lanned changes to state employment laws in WA will alter your carer’s leave and sick leave entitlements. Sick leave and carer’s leave will be combined into one entitlement, with both forms of leave now being termed ‘personal leave’. This change to the Minimum Conditions of Employment Act 1993 ( MCE Act) will be introduced through the Industrial Relations Legislation Amendment Act 2021 , which is scheduled to come into effect within the coming months. The quantum of leave and how it accrues and accumulates will not change. However, the previous limit on the amount of paid sick leave that could be taken for caring purposes each year will be removed. Currently, WA Health employees are entitled to use up to 10 days of their personal accrued sick leave to care for an ill family member, or for an unexpected emergency affecting a member of the practitioner’s family or household each year. But the practitioners must maintain a minimum of 10 days of sick leave available for personal use. All employees, including casual employees, will be entitled to unpaid personal leave for caring purposes under the MCE Act. The entitlement will be to take up to two days of unpaid personal leave for each occasion, when a member of the employee’s family or household requires care or support for a personal illness or injury, or an unexpected emergency. A further update will be provided once the changes to the MCE Act have come into effect. ■ N on-clinical duties, also termed clinical support duties, are a necessary component of any medical practitioner’s workload, and play a critical role in enabling quality teaching, and ensuring the productivity and functionality of the health service. Job descriptions should outline position responsibilities, and include clinical and non-clinical duties. Employed medical practitioners should be aware of their employer’s expectations in relation to the time they have quarantined for clinical support duties, and raise any concerns they have in relation to protected access to non-clinical time. Employers should also make sure they provide sufficient time for clinical support duties, ensuring that doctors with formal management responsibilities such as head of department or in other senior roles, and those who are supervisors of training, should have an additional allocation of time for these roles. The AMA (WA) has long advocated for protected time for duties that are not directly related to individual patient care, and there are provisions that are negotiated in industrial agreements that cover WA medical practitioners to provide protected time. At present, senior practitioners employed in the WA Health System have “as a guide”, 20 per cent of their duties allocated for non-clinical duties. The proportion of time allocated to non-clinical duties will likely vary across departments and specialty groups, Doctors employed by the Royal Flying Doctor Service (Western Operations) should be provided sufficient time to undertake clinical support duties, which in aggregate shall not be less than 20 per cent of a medical practitioner's duties. Access to time for clinical support duties is also supported by the RFDS Clinical Support Duties time policy. Non-clinical time, or clinical support duties, must be remunerated, and rosters should take account of all clinical and non-clinical duties. The AMA (WA) is aware that access to time for non-clinical duties continues to be limited for many practitioners, particularly given the recent impact of COVID-19 and staff furloughing. However, employers should make every effort to provide protected time for clinical support duties, during remunerated rostered hours. Keeping a logbook of your clinical support duties and the protected time you have allocated to complete those duties may be a useful tool to help establish whether or not you are being allocated sufficient time. Medical colleges may also have their own guidelines on what proportion of a practitioner's duties should be dedicated to clinical support duties, and you should refer to these to determine whether you have access to sufficient non-clinical time. If practitioners are struggling to access sufficient non- clinical time, the AMA (WA) encourages them to raise the issue with their head of department in the first instance, should they wish to address their limited access to time for non-clinical duties. ■