Medical Observer - GPs face cost hike from new employee award 17.07.2009

GPs face cost hike from new employee award - News - Medical Observer

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GPs face cost hike from new employee award Andrew Bracey - Friday, 17 July 2009

GENERAL practices already feeling the pressure of the global financial crisis are now set to face additional red tape and increased costs under a new national staff award, due to come into force on 1 January next year. Experts are urging practice principals to review the employment contracts of all reception staff, practice managers and directly employed allied health professionals to ensure they comply with the Health Professionals and Support Services Award. The award, which does not include nurses or GPs, is part of a government modernise payment awards and employment terms. Practice principals and their employees will now need to re-examine their contracts, taking into account new minimum wages and allowances. The award document covers 13 allowances including an on-call allowance, a telephone maintenance allowance nauseous work allowance for “handling linen of a nauseous nature” or work of an “unusually dirty or offensive Practice management consultant David Dahm estimated the award would affect up to 55% of practices, and said its highly prescriptive nature would erode the amount of work staff were prepared to do on a goodwill basis. “Certain things that were never considered [in contracts] now have to be looked at,” Mr Dahm said. “The little bits of give and take will no longer be there.” The prescriptive nature of the new laws also made it easier for disgruntled employees “to go after employers He predicted the changes – which also spell out new arrangements for casual and overtime work – would cost practices money through compliance and wage increases. James Bishop (pictured), practice manager at the Longevity Medical Centre in Doncaster Victoria, said the award would reduce flexibility when negotiating with individual employees. “[To say] everybody needs to get X amount of dollars for doing X job, is waffle... Some people work a lot harder and some people are far more capable,” he said. He also suggested it would be more difficult to terminate the contracts of under-performing employees. Geoff O’Kearney, director of workplace and advocacy at AMA Victoria, said although there would be some flexibility allowed in contracts, practices that had previously used individual agreements would find themselves encountering more red tape. New employee contract considerations

Casual and overtime work arrangements Nauseous work and onon-call allowances Minimum wages