Australian Health Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza

3.1 Protecting and ensuring appropriate health workforce

Skilled health care workers will be extremely important during an influenza pandemic. They will provide care and treat patients with pandemic influenza, support families during anxious times, and maintain other essential health services.

A range of strategies will be used to ensure that people delivering health care are provided with the most appropriate protection from infection in the workplace. Different protection measures will be applied depending on the level of risk of infection associated with the type of care that is being provided.
Protection measures that may be applied include:

• maintaining high levels of appropriate hygiene in the workplace
• organising services so that where possible infectious patients are treated in separate areas away from other patients
• asking all infectious or potentially infectious patients to wear a surgical mask to reduce the risk of spreading infection to others
• providing risk appropriate protective equipment to frontline health care workers
• providing antiviral prophylaxis according to current guidelines (see Appendix H)
• providing vaccine once it becomes available (either candidate and /or customised) in a staged approach to all health care workers.

Health departments throughout Australia are exploring how surge capacity within the health workforce will be provided to meet the anticipated increase in demand for health care. Safety and maintenance of acceptable standards are overriding principles guiding this work. Health departments are also working to ensure that health professionals will have the right level of training and skills to cope with the specific demands of an influenza pandemic.

While every effort will be made to encourage influenza patients to utilise influenza services, all practices including general practices, pharmacies and dental surgeries need to consider having their own pandemic plan. The approach an individual practice takes in dealing with patients with ILI will depend on local arrangements such as the availability of flu clinics and other influenza services.

In addition to protection from infection, health departments are developing systems to support health care workers in dealing with the psychological and social aspects of providing care during a pandemic and developing strategies to ensure that excess demands on health care workers can be minimised.

Health care workers are likely to require particular support due to their heightened risk associated with work, and because of fears for themselves and their families. Challenges associated with this circumstance can be supported by information, support programs through their workplace and identifying family support issues.
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Phase snapshot: Protecting and ensuring appropriate health workforce*

PHASE	HEALTH ACTION
ALERT	Prepare policy, infrastructure, processes, training material Stockpiling protective equipment and medication (e.g. antivirals) by government
DELAY	Provide protective equipment and antivirals to health care settings Provide health advice regarding use of stockpiled candidate vaccine for frontline health care workers Provide training and psychosocial support to frontline health care workers Provide post-exposure antiviral prophylaxis if an identified high risk exposure to a case occurs Implement organising patient management to separate patients with influenza like illness
CONTAIN	Provide risk appropriate PPE available to frontline health care workers Offer pre-exposure antivirals for frontline health care workers who are at continuous exposure to confirmed infectious patients within influenza services (as clinically appropriate) Provide post-exposure antiviral prophylaxis (as clinically appropriate) for health care workers who have an identified exposure in non-influenza service Implement workforce strategies as needed Continue training and psychosocial support Consider providing health advice regarding use of customised vaccine, if appropriate and according to whole of government decision (see Phase snapshot: Protecting the population by using vaccines)
SUSTAIN
CONTROL	Consider downscaling PPE and antivirals in areas no longer affected by the pandemic Evaluate efficacy of measure Continue psychosocial support for those who are frontline workers in the pandemic
RECOVER	Get ready to re-implement effective measures if a subsequent wave is imminent Continue psychosocial support and other influenza recovery services Cease organising patient management to separate patients with influenza like illness
Linked documents	Interim Infection Control Guidelines for Pandemic Influenza in Healthcare and Community Settings (June 2006) Interim National Pandemic Influenza Clinical Guidelines (June 2006) Aged Care Annex (under development) Health Workforce Enhancement Annex (under development) Pharmacy Annex (under development) Primary Care Annex (under development)

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*Vaccination policy for health care workers is detailed in 2.4 Protecting the population using vaccination

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This information is current for 03 September, 2010
This information was issued on 05 December, 2008