CRANAplus CEO Christo­pher Cliffe described the report as a search of the lit­er­a­ture to see what is already known about remote health safe­ty and what, if any­thing, has already been done. The report also iden­ti­fies the out­comes of a nation­al con­ver­sa­tion with remote area clin­i­cians, man­agers, and oth­er stakeholders.

“The broad con­sul­ta­tions result­ed in many rec­om­men­da­tions with­in the report. Things rarely change quick­ly, how­ev­er as an indus­try, with this report, we have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to enhance our prac­tices and demand the same lev­el of ser­vice, resourc­ing and sup­port as our main­stream col­leagues”, said Mr Cliffe.

Paul Stephen­son, the Chair of the CRANAplus Board states ​“Infor­ma­tion in the report is at times con­fronting, how­ev­er it pro­vides a valu­able descrip­tion of the con­di­tions under which many of the remote health work­force prac­tice. Work­ing remote dif­fers from many oth­er areas of health­care, requir­ing enhanced self-reliance, skills, and pro­fes­sion­al capability.

Mr Stephen­son con­tin­ued, ​“The report looks broad­ly at remote health work­force safe­ty and secu­ri­ty issues. It iden­ti­fies six key areas includ­ing: staff assault; vehi­cle & trav­el safe­ty; emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tion; dog attack; bul­ly­ing & harass­ment; and per­son­al wellbeing.” 

The sec­ond stage of the project involves devel­op­ing a set of nation­al remote health safe­ty & secu­ri­ty guide­lines and a suite of prac­ti­cal resources includ­ing an app, resource book, and on-line training.