CORONAVIRUS
— CONTACT TRACING
976. Hon PETER COLLIER to
the parliamentary secretary representing the Minister for Health:
(1) What tracking
and tracing measures currently exist for the detection of COVID-19 in Western Australia?
(2) What measures
are currently in place in aged-care facilities in Western Australia to prevent
the spread of COVID-19?
Hon ALANNA
CLOHESY replied:
I thank the honourable member for
some notice of the question.
(1) Western Australia has a highly developed
track-and-trace model. COVID-19 cases are notified electronically from the laboratories to the public health
operations arm of the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre. Staff are available seven days a week between 8.00
am and 5.00 pm to action cases. The after-hours on-call public health physician can commence management of cases
detected after hours. There is capacity to increase hours of service,
depending on the number of cases. WA has an electronic system for contact
tracing, the Salesforce PHOCUS data management system, which enables direct
entry of information and has a track-and-trace function that enables us to
identify outbreaks in a rapid fashion. Staff are highly trained in using the
PHOCUS data management system to enter details about the case, including case
movements while infectious, and identifying and managing close contacts.
Governance structures are in place
and include education, surge capacity, standard operating procedures,
self-quarantine surveillance, and a suite of template letters and fact sheets
for cases and close contacts. There are scripts to advise cases and close
contacts about the actions they need to take, including isolation and
quarantine. There are a number of outbreak plans to enable rapid action in the
event of COVID-19 cases in high-risk settings—for example, residential
care facilities, corrective services and schools. Daily monitoring, generally by text message, is provided for cases and close
contacts. Cases are cleared once they have met the requirements for clearance
as stipulated in the Communicable Diseases Network Australia's COVID-19
national guidelines. WA has already managed over 1 200 COVID-19 cases,
including the Victorian cases that WA followed up.
(2) A key
priority for the WA Department of Health, via the State Health Incident
Coordination Centre, for COVID-19 has been the implementation of a range of
initiatives to support care of older persons in WA. This includes the
investment of close to $1 million to pilot enhancements to WA's
residential care line and outreach service. This nurse-led service, which
promotes care in place to older people in aged care, reducing their presentations to emergency departments and nights spent
in hospital, has expanded from the metropolitan area to encompass
regional WA. Importantly, the service now includes access to specialist
geriatrician advice. There is also engagement with the aged-care sector to
support prevention and preparedness activities, including stakeholder forums
and webinars and a forum with the Minister for Health, and the development of the COVID-19 residential aged-care
outbreak response plan. A key tactical component of the outbreak plan is
the clinical and logistic support team. Comprising a range of experts, such as infectious disease physicians and nurses
and geriatricians, the team will provide on-ground support to facilities
experiencing an outbreak to manage the COVID-positive cohort, and will lead and
implement approaches to reduce the risk of further transmission. Additionally,
outbreak planning for aged care has been exercised with nearly half of all WA
aged-care facilities. Learnings identified at these workshops have been used to
improve future versions of the outbreak plan.
SHICC is engaging further with the
sector to provide free personal protective equipment for training purposes and
to roll out face-to-face infection prevention and control training. Every
facility in WA will receive a kit containing 20 PPE training sets, with
delivery of nearly 5 000 bundles of PPE commencing this week. Face-to-face
training, expected to commence next week, will initially be provided to
facilities identified as a priority by commonwealth audit processes. The
training will utilise WA-developed PPE training resources and will adopt a train-the-trainer
approach.