Canberra Liberals MLA Leanne Castley, Shadow Minister for Health, will call on health minister Rachel Stephen-Smith to report to the Assembly by the last week of November on efforts to restore training accreditation for all four specialty units at the Canberra Hospital.

The Fetal Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and Child at Risk Health units have all been identified by the relevant colleges as being unable to perform their regular duties while training junior doctors. The Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Unit has had its training accreditation revoked for the Plastic Surgery term.

“These four units are facing the prospect of having their training accreditation withdrawn because of significant staffing shortages and burnout, which in turn is impacting the training of our junior doctors and clinical care,” Ms Castley said.

“Today, I will call on the Health Minister to update the Assembly on the outcome of the colleges’ reviews of these units so that Canberrans are kept up to date on their training accreditation status.

“The Minister should tell Canberrans whether they have satisfied the colleges’ standards by addressing staff shortages as well as clinical and training settings at our tertiary hospital.”

This was not the first time the college had placed Canberra Hospital’s Obstetrics and Gynaecology unit on provisional accreditation, Ms Castley observed; this also happened in 2014.

“That is why I am calling on the Minister to table the detailed workforce plan requested by the college for this unit, so that Canberrans can have reassurance that the Minister has a plan to bring the unit back to the standards it should meet.

“We know that doctors who train in Canberra are more likely to stay. For the past three years, only around 62 per cent of ANU graduates accepted employment offers from Canberra Health Services. In contrast, between 2013 and 2015, the average was around 77 per cent acceptance rate.

“Training conditions for junior doctors are clearly falling short of the relevant colleges standards, and as a result, our trainee and junior doctors are commencing training elsewhere.

“If the ACT does not place more of an emphasis on training our junior doctors, then we will continue to struggle to attract and retain staff in specialties which currently have a limited number of specialists.”