Maintaining personal and practice safety in podiatry

All employers, business owners, contractors and employees have an obligation to create and maintain a safe working environment. And to do this, we all need to think about what makes our workplace unique in terms of the risks and the strategies needed to keep it safe.

There are a few ways in which podiatry practices can pose risks to the personal safety of practitioners, other people who work there and patients. One-on-one consultations mean that the practitioner is always alone with a patient. Small practices can lead to practitioners being the only worker present in a clinic. And the varied hours of clinics will often see practitioners working late at night.

Below are some tips to help you create a safe workplace for everyone who comes into your practice.

  • When booking in a new patient who you know nothing about, consider booking them in during a busy time of the day when there are other staff around, rather than when the practitioner will be in the practice alone.
  • If you have a patient who, for any reason, raises some red flags in terms of the practitioner’s comfort levels, only allow them to book in when there are others in the practice.
  • If a practitioner is practicing in the evening and is the only person working at that time, consider locking the front door to the practice. If you do this, explain to patients inside what you’re doing and why. And consider your process for other patients who’ll be arriving. Will you let them know the door will be locked and that they’re to wait outside until you’re ready for them? Maybe you’ll only lock the door once the final patient for the day has arrived.
  • Installing a buzzer on the front door notifies you when it’s been opened, thereby allowing you to be sure when people are entering your practice.
  • Consider installing a reception area camera and post clear signage so anyone who enters understands they’re being filmed and will be identifiable. Don’t use cameras in treatment rooms.
  • Consider walking patients and colleagues to their cars when it’s late, however be sure to consider your own safety when doing this. Provide patients with advice on safe places to park.
  • Always lock your car doors as soon as you get in, and keep in mind criminals can approach from varying angles, so they may be in your blind spot.
  • If the practice is in the home of the practitioner, have processes in place to separate the living space from the practice to protect the privacy and safety of the practitioner and their family members, especially children. And be aware, family members may also breach a patient’s privacy or modesty, so ensure everyone in your household understands the rules.
  • Keep records of any uncomfortable, challenging or threatening behaviours from patients, and be sure to save anything that’s received via text or email. This information is to be recorded in the patient record. The details on what occurred can be brief, but must be professional, keeping in mind records can be seen by others.
  • Don’t contact patients via your personal email or mobile phone or provide these details to them. If you need to contact them while off-site, put your phone on “No Caller ID” so they don’t have access to your phone number. If you leave a voicemail message, ask the patient to call the clinic phone, not your mobile.
  • Have a practice policy that advises against practitioners connecting with patients on social media as these connections can contribute to the blurring of professional boundaries. And be sure to understand the privacy settings of any social media platforms used.
  • Discuss any challenging or awkward situations with your colleagues or other healthcare professionals, while maintaining patient confidentiality. This not only provides support when dealing with challenging situations, it can also provide additional tips for how to manage these situations.

It’s important to remember that workplace safety laws apply to everyone in the business, including contractors, not just the business owner. A safe work environment is in everyone’s best interest so open communication about any concerns is the best way to protect all staff members.

Download PDF Here

Similar Articles

  •

    Are you sure your professional indemnity insurance is current?

    While making your way through emails one evening, you come across one from Ahpra (Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency). It informs you that they’ve received a notification about you from one of your patients, alleging your treatment has caused harm. You’re shocked and confused; this has never happened to you before. You immediately notify Guild Insurance, knowing they’re there to support you during moments like this. However, the situation becomes more concerning when Guild informs you that your policy lapsed five months earlier.

    Could this happen to you? It’s easy to think not. However, Guild Insurance has noticed a worrying trend of practitioners failing to maintain instalment payments during the policy period, or to renew their policy.

    Ahpra’s registration standards

    Being covered by a professional indemnity insurance (PII) policy is a registration standard for all health professionals registered with Ahpra. This means that every practitioner must be covered by either their own PII policy or a third party arrangement. Section 129 of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law states that:

    “A registered health practitioner must not practise the health profession in which the practitioner is registered unless appropriate professional indemnity insurance arrangements are in force in relation to the practitioner’s practice of the profession.”

    Section 130 of the National law details relevant events where, if they occur, a practitioner is required to notify their relevant Board within seven days after becoming aware of the event. PII arrangements no longer being in place is one of these events.

    It’s recommended that all practitioners review their Board’s Professional Indemnity Insurance Registration Standard which can be found on the Ahpra website: www.ahpra.gov.au.

    Implications of having no PII

    No cover for an investigation or complaint

    Most PII policies provide cover on a claims-made basis. This means that, regardless of when the alleged event occurs, if the practitioner doesn’t have a policy at the time they become aware of the complaint, they won’t be covered for that claim. Without a PII policy, the practitioner won’t have the support of a claims manager or lawyer, instead having to respond to the claim or complaint themselves, or pay a lawyer to do this for them. By not having a PII policy, this would also mean the practitioner has to self-fund any compensation payable to the patient, which can be quite costly.

    Breach of professional requirements

    As already mentioned, not being covered by a PII policy is a breach of Ahpra’s registration standards. Further to this, it can lead to practitioners making a false declaration at the time of registration renewal. At renewal, practitioners are asked to declare that they won’t practice without PII. If they continue practicing when there’s no longer a PII policy in place, this may mean they’ve made a false declaration. There are possible registration consequences for practicing without PII. This can include conditions placed on the registration, refusal of an application for registration renewal or suspension of registration.

    What can be done to prevent this?

    The team at Guild do all they can to make customers aware when their policy is due for renewal, or if the policy is going to be lapsed or cancelled due to non-payment of the premium. However, ultimately, the responsibility for maintaining PII cover sits with each individual practitioner.

    PolicyHub – Guild Insurance has an online self-service platform called PolicyHub where customers can access their insurance information. If you aren’t sure when you last paid your insurance premiums and you want to check when it’s due, logging onto PolicyHub is an easy way to keep yourself informed. This can be accessed via Guild’s website – guildinsurance.com.au/policyhub.

    Reliance on a third party – if a practitioner doesn’t hold their own PII policy and is instead covered by a third party’s policy (e.g. your employer’s), this doesn’t mean the practitioner isn’t responsible for ensuring they’re appropriately covered. Practitioners should discuss the policy with the third party to ensure, first and foremost, that they have a policy, but also that the level of cover is appropriate for the practitioner’s requirements.

    Set reminders – a common explanation for not maintaining insurance is that the practitioner has a poorly-managed inbox and doesn’t stay up-to-date with reading emails, meaning some are missed. If this might happen to you, think about how else you can be sure you won’t miss that renewal date. Setting a reminder in a calendar is one simple way to do this.

    Setting a reminder in your calendar is one simple way to help not miss your insurance renewal.

    Download PDF Here

    Don’t go it alone
    guildinsurance.com.au

  •

    Clinical Records Checklist

    Maintaining appropriate and detailed clinical records is a core requirement for all health professionals. Unfortunately, when managing claims against health professionals, Guild Insurance sees too many cases where the records haven’t been kept to the standard expected. It’s the responsibility of all health professionals to make themselves familiar with their regulator’s codes and guidelines regarding record keeping as well as other areas of professional behaviour and conduct.

    Responding to the statements on this checklist will help you evaluate your record keeping practice. ‘No’ answers are opportunities for reflection on and improvement of your processes.

    Download PDF Here

  •

    Stay on the right side of Ahpra’s advertising requirements

    While there are laws for advertising any business in Australia, The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) has specific requirements for anyone advertising a regulated health service. And these requirements apply equally to all types of health professionals regulated by Ahpra.

    These advertising requirements are set under Section 133 of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law. Therefore, breaching an advertising requirement is a criminal offence for which prosecution and financial penalties can apply. For an individual, there may be a penalty of up to $60,000 per offence and $120,000 for a body corporate.

    Where to get the facts

    It’s incredibly important that all health practitioners and health practices who advertise a regulated health service make themselves fully aware of these requirements and what they need to do to comply.

    The information in this article summarises the key requirements, yet it’s important to refer to the information provided by Ahpra to be fully informed, which can be found at ahpra.gov.au/Resources/Advertising-hub.

    Within the hub, you’ll find the document titled Guidelines for advertising a regulated health service, published December 2020, which provides a wealth of information and guidance.

    What’s advertising?

    Ahpra defines advertising as ‘all forms of verbal, printed or electronic public communication that promotes a regulated health service provider to attract a person to the provider (practitioner or business).’

    This includes all forms of advertising such as websites, social media, flyers, billboards, signage and business cards.

    What’s not allowed?

    There are five advertising requirements regarding what’s not allowed in advertising according to the National Law (listed below as (a) through to (e)).

    Section 133 of the National Law states that a person must not advertise a regulated health service, or a business that provides a regulated health service, in a way that:

    • (a) is false, misleading or deceptive or is likely to be misleading or deceptive

    This requires advertising to be honest and factual, with consideration for the audience and their level of understanding. The information should be detailed as partial information has the potential to be misleading. The information also needs to be based on “acceptable evidence”; an explanation of this can be found in the Guidelines document.

    • (b) offers a gift, discount or other inducement to attract a person to use the service or the business, unless the advertisement also states the terms and conditions of the offer

    The terms and conditions need to be clear, not misleading and in language that can be understood by the intended audience. Details of price, and the services to be provided, must be easily understood.

    • (c) uses testimonials or purported testimonials about the service or business

    A testimonial, in this instance, refers to a positive statement about the clinical aspects of a regulated health service. Testimonials aren’t allowed as they’re often biased, subjective and misleading and won’t apply to all patients and their unique clinical situations.

    • (d) creates an unreasonable expectation of beneficial treatment

    Patients need to have realistic expectations regarding treatment outcomes. This means not making unsubstantiated scientific claims or overstating the potential benefit of treatment. It’s also important to not minimise the risk of harm by declaring treatment to be safe or risk-free, as all healthcare treatment carries some level of risk.

    • (e) directly or indirectly encourages the indiscriminate or unnecessary use of regulated health services

    Advertising shouldn’t encourage the public to buy or use a regulated health service they don’t need or is of no benefit. It’s important to not create a sense of urgency or encourage regular appointments when not clinically indicated.

    Use of titles

    Accuracy and detail in titles when advertising is important to be sure the public understand the qualifications and registration type of a health professional. And this information doesn’t have to be false to be misleading.

    All registered health professions regulated by Ahpra are protected titles under the National Law. Therefore, those titles can only be used in advertising by professionals qualified and registered under that profession.

    The use of protected titles extends to specialist registration. It’s considered that if a practitioner doesn’t hold specialist registration, using words such as ‘specialist’, ‘specialises in’, ‘specialty’ or ‘specialised’ may be misleading or deceptive and therefore in breach of the guidelines.

    “Doctor” (or “Dr”) isn’t a protected title and can be used by various types of health professionals. However, as the public have historically used this term to refer to medical practitioners, it could be misleading in advertising. Therefore, if the use of “Dr” doesn’t refer to a medical practitioner, it must be made clear the type of health professional it’s referring to.

    What you’re responsible for

    Health practitioners are responsible for compliance with advertising requirements when they have control over that advertising. This means that, for example, if a testimonial is posted on a practitioner’s social media page, they’re able to remove it and must do so; to leave it would be in breach.

    However, if that testimonial is posted on a public review site, the practitioner isn’t expected to remove it or try to have it removed. Yet they are expected not to promote, through ‘likes’ or ‘shares’, those testimonials they can’t remove.

    Anyone who advertises a regulated health service is considered an advertiser and is responsible for ensuring their advertising complies. Therefore, advertising created by others, such as a marketing or advertising professional, needs to be checked by the responsible advertiser to be sure it isn’t in breach.

    Guild Insurance encourages health practitioners regulated by Ahpra to review all of their advertising and make any necessary changes immediately to be sure they’re not in breach. Remember, these advertising requirements are the law!

    Download pdf version

See more

The information supplied by you will be received, retained, used and disclosed by Guild Insurance Limited and its related companies and business partners for the primary purpose of providing you with further information on, evaluating, affecting, managing and administering products and services offered by Guild Insurance Limited and its related companies and business partners.

You may at any time request that no further marketing material be sent to you by clicking ‘unsubscribe’ via email communication. You may also access the personal information Guild Insurance Limited holds about you by contacting: Phone:  1800 810 213

© Copyright Guild Group Holdings Limited