Calling on our experts

When our Provider Support Officers receive calls looking for support, they respond quickly and creatively. 

Related Tags

Collaboration Workforce Innovation Information, knowledge and insights
Doctor with stethoscope around neck holding a clipboard and pen, smiling into camera
One of our priorities as a Primary Health Network is to support general practices across South Eastern Melbourne. Having difficult conversations or managing violent behaviour can be a challenge for anyone. As the pandemic progressed, general practice staff encountered more and more issues of this nature in their waiting and treatment rooms. 

You can’t spell support without PSO

SEMPHN’s Provider Support Officers (PSO) are a team that regularly engages with general practices to support them with business procedures and whole-of-practice, patient-centred care approaches. PSOs also help practices understand and participate in a range of SEMPHN initiatives. 

After experiencing a challenging altercation at their clinic, a local general practice picked up the phone to call our PSO team in search for Occupational Violence training, to ensure the safety of their patients and staff.

Establishing connections, encouraging collaboration

The team dug into its bag of resources and knowledge to find a solution. With SEMPHN-funded services front of mind, the PSO contacted Taskforce, an organisation that specialises in drug and alcohol services. Taskforce advised SEMPHN that training was currently under development, but they would be happy to meet with the general practice to find an intermediate solution.

Taskforce assisted the general practice to develop a policy for their clinic. In due time, the occupational violence training is expected to be available and lessons implemented. Additionally, Taskforce offered to help the general practice establish a relationship with the local police as another resource to call on when challenges arose. 

Our PSO team did an amazing job to facilitate these collaborative efforts to support a local general practice’s resilience in a challenging situation. Thank you Taskforce for so willingly offering your advice, expertise and assistance. 

Key statistics

  • Up to 95% of Victorian health care workers have experienced verbal or physical assault.
  • Females have more than twice the rate of claims due to workplace violence than males — 11.3 vs 4.7 claims per 100 million hours worked.
  • General practice teams, particularly in clinics offering COVID-19 vaccinations, ‘were often the target of patient frustrations and at times aggressive behaviour’, an RACGP submission to the Australian National Audit Office reported in 2021.
  • In May 2020, the World Medical Association described occupational violence as ‘an international emergency’, saying the issue had surged in the past decade then ‘expanded dramatically’ as COVID-19 spread.
  • Research based on meta-analysis and systemic reviews that took place before the pandemic found 61.9% of healthcare worker participants had been exposed to some form of workplace violence, including non-physical abuse.

Up next:

Top support for primary care staff through COVID

While general practices continued to respond to the pandemic and provide flexible primary care, SEMPHN continued to be a trusted source of COVID-19 information.

Read next story
Female nurse administering vaccine to female patient, both wearing masks
Share by: