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STAFFING NOTES

The Department of Health and Aged Care (Health) has on multiple occasions, suggested that CCDR needs to produce all contracts with staff any sub-contractors, and those sub-contractors need to produce any contracts they have that relate to the grant. This includes all partner organisations making available the individual contracts that they have with their Pathways nurses.

CCDR believes in transparency however we have concerns about this request as there is noting in our grant agreement that stipulates how sub-contractors need to be managed or specific conditions in relation to contract management. There has never been any rationale given for this request and as there are no agreed terms in relation to the way contracts are managed – and therefore no way to assess them – it is difficult to understand how reviewing contracts is a reasonable request. There were also no terms within the contract on the definition of a patient organisation or how services should be run, yet this kind of investigation seems to continue and suggests that new indicators or measures have been introduced unilaterally.

Many individuals have been involved in the program over the four years, and all were acknowledged in the Pathways Evaluation 2022. CCDR has staff in various locations who have made the Pathways and NPON programs possible.

In his Notice of Remedy, Mr Chris Bedford claimed that a series of documents (questionnaires) indicated that CCDR’s Chief Executive was maintaining a minimum of 4 positions within the program, with the implication that salary was being received for all of these roles. The documents cited by Mr Chris Bedford did not indicate this at all.

CCDR would like to take this opportunity to clarify that through the four year program, the Chief Executive was paid $6619 (including tax, superannuation and on-costs) for work conducted under the line item ‘Specialist Nurse Consultants’. The remaining work of the Chief Executive across the four years was not costed to the grant budget provided by the Commonwealth and a significant amount of her work has been as a volunteer.

The genetic and rare disease service was originally hosted by Genetic Alliance Australia. The nurse working on the program resigned and CCDR’s then General Manager worked with a number of peak rare disease organisations and under the guidance of the National Patient Organisation Standing Committee, to come to a decision that the service would be able to provide support for more people if three organisations (Genetic Alliance Australia, SWAN Australia and GSNV) could access it. CCDR’s Chief Executive was not involved in the discussions around this decision.

It was decided that the nurse would be employed by CCDR and a nurse was recruited. For confidential reasons, that nurse was unable to continue in the role and CCDR attempted to recruit a new nurse. The field of rare and genetic disease is difficult to recruit into and no suitable candidates were found. CCDR’s chief executive had the experience needed and when the Chief Executive offered to take up the role as the Pathways Nurse for this service, that funding was assigned to her salary. This was $85,288 from October 2020 to June 2022 ($2,305 per month including superannuation, tax and on-costs). The genetic service had the second highest patient volume across all Pathways services.

CCDR and our community partners have delivered an exceptional program of work in Pathways and the National Patient Organisation Network Australia programs for a very small cost. Had we not delivered on our indicators, we could understand Health having concerns, but for all indicators we have consistently delivered if not overdelivered. It has at most times felt like the only questions asked of us have been aimed at finding fault, and questions will not stop, whether it’s within our grant agreement or not. We’ve never been asked for example, how we were able to achieve so much with so few resources, or how we were able to establish a new health service essentially from scratch as a start-up, or how we’ve been able to engage the community to grow the National Patient Organisation Network into the largest group of patient organisations in Australia – all in just a few years.

CCDR is a modern organisation, using resources in an innovative way and stretching a limited budget to reach more patients and more patient organisations. Our program management costs range from line items valued at $7,500 to $35,000 per annum. We had hoped this would be celebrated and recognised by Health, as is was by the Hon Mark Butler MP, Minister for Health and Aged Care when he made the election commitment to fund and expand the program.