AGED AND CONTINUING CARE
DIRECTORATE — PROFESSOR LEON FLICKER
724. Mr
K.M. O'DONNELL to the Minister for Health:
Greetings, Mr Speaker. I refer to
the front page of this morning's The West Australian and the
article regarding Professor Flitcher —
Mr R.H. Cook: Flicker.
Mr K.M. O'DONNELL:
Flicker. I knew I should have read it. I tried to get up here and do it without
reading. I apologise.
The SPEAKER: Preamble. Get
it going.
Mr K.M. O'DONNELL:
I refer to that article. He is the chair of the expert reference group, the
Aged and Continuing Care Directorate. Is the government ignoring the
advice of Professor Flicker and that expert group, and can the minister confirm
that that is the reason Professor Flicker resigned?
Mr R.H.
COOK replied:
I thank the member for the
question. At the outset, I pay my respects to Professor Leon Flicker and thank
him for the time he has served in the role. He has been chair of the Aged and
Continuing Care Directorate expert reference group for the last six years. I know
Leon very well and have been the recipient of his advice and ongoing guidance
since I was in opposition, so obviously I greatly appreciate the great
expertise that he brings and also his status; he is a leader among
geriatricians and has done, and will continue to do, great work on behalf of
the community.
It
is true that we have reorganised the Department of Health in the context of
that reference group and where it fits into the overall directorate.
That was done in 2017 as part of the reorganisation of the Department of Health
when we reduced the number of senior executive service positions, which
resulted in divisions and associated directorates
being reorganised. Late last year, plans were afoot to move the aged-care
function within the Department of Health into the governance division of
the Department of Health and bolster it. This would align it with aged care
being more closely related to policy and planning and intergovernmental
relations, as this is a mixture of commonwealth and state responsibility. That
happened a fortnight ago, and obviously we are expecting to see some great work
done. There are plans to form an aged-care clinical network in the Department
of Health under the Clinical Excellence division. This work was, by and large,
held up as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic response,
but that certainly does not diminish our commitment for aged care. As all
members know, we neither fund nor regulate aged care, but it is an
important part of caring for the Western Australian community. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we set up a separate work
team under the State Health Incident Coordination Centre before we even
declared an emergency under the Emergency Management Act. We understand the
vulnerability of aged-care residents, and from that point of view they have
been a very important focus for us in relation
to COVID-19. I work very closely with all our geriatricians and have met with
them on a number of occasions since coming to government. I will
continue to work closely with them and, from that perspective, I thank Professor
Leon Flicker once again for his great work.