We thank the AMA (WA) for once again conducting the Hospital Health Check survey, which provides an important opportunity to review our progress, reflect on the results, and identify ways to further enhance the experience of our junior doctors.
We are pleased that North Metropolitan Health Service (NMHS) continues to be recognised as an employer of choice, including Women and Newborn Health Service (WNHS), which is assessed separately in the survey. The results suggest our junior doctors value NMHS as a place to work, reflecting the strength of our training programs, clinical environment, and organisational culture.
It was particularly encouraging to see WNHS achieve strong progress across reputation, culture and training-related domains. At the same time, we recognise there is more work to do in areas including wellbeing, psychological safety and access to leave, which remain important priorities.
The survey provides valuable insight into where we are performing well as an organisation, and where further improvement is needed, particularly in the context of sustained workforce and service delivery pressures across the public health system.
We are proud of the improved scores achieved over recent years, and recognise the importance of ongoing engagement with our junior medical officers (JMOs) to ensure they feel valued, respected and supported. Day-to-day safety, speaking up, bullying and discrimination exposure, fatigue, and leave and flexibility arrangements will continue to be key areas of focus.
We also welcome the 10 recommendations outlined by the AMA (WA) following this year’s survey. It is encouraging to see the recommendations reflect many of NMHS’ underlying strengths, including our focus on culture, training support, access to leave, and collaborative partnerships with junior doctors.
We acknowledge the feedback relating to workload pressures, fatigue management and roster alignment, noting these are complex, system-wide challenges that require coordinated responses at both hospital and broader health system level.
NMHS remains committed to working collaboratively with medical leaders, departments, DiTs and external stakeholders, including the AMA (WA), to address identified issues and strengthen training conditions across the organisation. As part of our strategic objective of becoming the best place to work, we continue to review, develop and implement initiatives that support our JMO workforce and contribute to safe, sustainable and positive training environments.
We will also continue engaging closely with JMOs to better understand and respond to their priorities, while maintaining a transparent and constructive approach to addressing areas for improvement.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the dedication and professionalism of our medical workforce, administration and education teams, with special mention to our Managers of Medical Workforce and Medical Education coordinators. Together with our Executive teams, they remain strongly committed to ensuring the JMO experience across NMHS is positive, supportive and rewarding.
