New strategy where wellbeing matters most ushers in a new era at St John WA
- St John WA launches new Strategic Plan’s five pillars for reaching everyone in WA and amplifying wellbeing across its health services.
- SJWA concluded FY24 with a lower lost time injury frequency rate (LTIFR) than the previous two financial years.
- Focus on major investment and uplift in built form with more than 90 projects underway across the State.
Safety, wellbeing and innovation across all areas of St John WA (SJWA) are central to its new Strategic Plan – published in its Impact Report for the first time.
SJWA’s Strategic Plan:
- Connect and grow with our community: Build our brand to become a trusted health partner through lifetime relationships.
- Build a wellbeing and health ecosystem: Establish a platform which connects community to services for wellbeing and health.
- Volunteering reimagined: Reset the volunteer value proposition to become the leading organisation.
- The best place to work in WA: Build a community-minded culture for the betterment of those we serve.
- Become an excellent organisation: Put the ‘enterprise’ in social enterprise by giving people the tools needed to be successful in their work.
SJWA concluded FY24 with a lower lost time injury frequency rate (LTIFR) than the previous two financial years, recording a result of 25.6. (LTIFR is not a fixed measurement and the data presented is a snapshot in time.)
SJWA Group CEO Kevin Brown is determined to reduce the LTIFR further.
“The team is working every day to find new ways to create a culture of safety, which is evident in a big increase in near-miss reporting of 75 per cent from FY23 to FY24, showing a growing organisation-wide no-blame reporting culture,” Kevin said.
“A big portion of the St John WA team works every day in an unpredictable and dynamic environment. Whether it’s teaching a first aid course, supporting a community event, or responding to an emergency in an ambulance, every day can present a new challenge – and with it comes potential risk.
“Every team member expects to go home at the end of the day in the same physical and psychological health in which they came to work, particularly when the job of our team is to support Western Australians often experiencing their worst day.”
The number of injuries related to violence and aggression almost halved from 82 to 54 reported injuries since the previous year, demonstrating de-escalation training and safe work practices have had a significant impact.
SJWA was also recognised for Excellence in Mental Health & Wellbeing by its peers at this year’s Council of Ambulance Authorities’ Awards because of its introduction of Flexible Workplace Arrangements designed to support frontline ambulance officers with family caring commitments, as well as those looking to transition to retirement being able to maintain their clinical skills and have mentoring capacity while reducing the physical demands of on-road work.
A big part of supporting returning mothers and those needing a mental, emotional or physical break has been the creation of wellness rooms across central hubs, new buildings and rollout to stations, which have a fridge and sink for lactation purposes, as well as comfortable chairs and low lighting options.
Part of SJWA’s new Strategic Plan has been a focus on major investment and uplift in built form with more than 90 projects underway across the state.
The Strategic Plan was developed and launched during the year, aligning the entire enterprise behind five key focus areas and four new values, which sets out a clear path for SJWA’s transformation program to deliver a forward-thinking digital future.
“The new strategic plan and values have also reinvigorated the organisation and provided a north star towards which we aim, underpinned by a way of working co-created by, and uniquely for, the broad SJWA team,” Kevin said.
“I am proud of this work and the adjustment to direction was well timed to closely follow our first complete year working under a refreshed Ambulance Services Agreement which provided a pathway for change and innovation.”
Some areas of innovation and expansion:
- Extended Care Paramedic (ECP) pilot launched on road in February 2024, expanding to three crews across the metropolitan area responding to patients for whom high quality ‘in place’ care and referral is appropriate.
- SJWA became the first emergency service in Australia to provide Auslan interpreting services for the Deaf and hard of hearing community in its Urgent Care centres and ambulances.
- Launch of a safety intelligence dashboard to enable creation of risk management strategies to identify potential hazards and assess risks associated with work undertaken at SJWA.
- A Paediatric Acute Recognition and Response Observation Tool (PARROT) was rolled out to ambulance crews in October to support team members to identify the unique signs of deterioration in younger patients.
- Revamped St John First Responder app which puts the collective First Aid knowledge of SJWA into the hand of a smart-phone user.
- New Volunteer Advocacy Team (VAT) tasked with “reimagining the volunteer experience” to raise awareness and foster a shared understanding of volunteering roles within SJWA and their diverse challenges.
- A Menopause Working Group for all team members (not just women) with the aim of creating open and honest conversations about menopause.
- New research and publications in clinical excellence.
