Up to December 2007, conditions of employment for all health practitioners, including dental officers, working for Queensland Health, were contained in the Queensland Public Health Sector Certified Agreement (No. 6) 2005. Additional entitlements for these staff were subsequently applied administratively through the Professional and Technical Stream Employees and Dental Officers (Queensland Health) Agreement 2005.
Since January 2008, conditions of employment for the majority of health practitioners were moved into the Health Practitioners (Queensland Health) Certified Agreement (No. 1) 2007.
The new agreement provides a number of key benefits to Health Practitioners:
Employees covered under the new agreement received increases of at least 18% over the three years:
A new 8-level career structure was introduced to provide more career opportunities for professional and technical staff and recognise the advanced clinical, research and education roles and skills of these staff.
Radiographers, Sonographer/Radiographers, Breast Imaging Radiographers, Radiochemists, Nuclear Medicine Technologists and Pharmacists classified at HP4 level and above were provided a retention payment of $3500 per year. Half this amount was also made available to employees at HP3.7 level for over 12 months in 2008 and will increase to $3500 per year for this level in 2009.
An increased professional development allowance of between $1500 and $2500 per annum is provided to all permanent full-time and part-time employees who work a minimum of 15.2 hours per fortnight. The allowance is paid on a pro-rata basis for part-time employees and includes an entitlement of three days' paid professional development leave.
This allowance provides incentives for employees at HP1 to HP4 levels who have a second relevant degree or a relevant post-graduate certificate, post-graduate diploma, post-graduate masters or PhD(s). The qualification must be additonal to the basic qualification that entitles registration or entry-level employment for the profession.
The new agreement increased the minimum payment from 2 hours to 3 hours.
The agreement provides for an Emergency Clinical On-Call allowance calculated at 7% of HP3.7 level per hour. This is available to health practitioners who are required for direct clinical interventions where patient health will likely be compromised without the timely intervention of the health practitioner and where on-call needs to be maintained 24 hour a day, 7 days per week.
Employees covered by this agreement have the opportunity to have their job descriptions, roles and responsibilities evaluated against new Work Level Statements. This is referred to as the Phase 2 evaluation process. Applications are to be lodged by 30 May 2008, and this process is proposed to be completed by 30 September 2008. Wage increases for reclassified positions as a result of Phase 2 will be back dated to 1 September 2007.
Should you require any further information please contact the Health Practitioner Team via email: HPEB1@health.qld.gov.au
Other languages