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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 976 asked in the Legislative Council on 22 September 2020 by Hon Peter Collier

Parliament: 40 Session: 1

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.