Jen Gamble. Photo: Christopher Hopkins
A co-winner of the 2023 HSR of the Year Award, Jen Gamble initially nominated to become an HSR to support her colleague Gaye Coles – the other 2023 winner.
‘I enjoyed talking to Gaye about the different things she was doing in the role,’ Jen says, ‘and was interested in being involved and supporting her as we are a 24/7 unit and it’s a massive Designated Work Group.’
Together, Jen and Gaye represent a Designated Work Group of more than 250 staff, and have achieved several significant gains to improve their workplace safety. One in particular stands out for Jen:
‘We had a situation with a badly designed nurses’ station where we had staff showing us tremendous amounts of bruising they were getting.’ After investigating the issue – the sharp edges of the benchtop – they submitted a RiskMan and convinced management to replace the sharp edges with rounded edges. ‘Having staff report they aren’t being bruised and injured any more – those are the wins.’
‘Every time we’ve achieved changes that we know make our colleagues and patients safer, it’s a celebration.’
Day to day, enabling such change doesn’t take too much time or effort. ‘It often consists of having your ear to the ground and hearing about things that are happening around the unit,’ Jen says. ‘People mention things where they have been injured, or almost injured, or likewise a visitor.
‘So we’re constantly listening because people, for some reason, need a lot of encouragement to report risks. When we hear about it, we can support them in making a report and having the problem solved.’
The role also involves ‘working collaboratively with management to provide a safe workplace,’ Jen adds. It is also about ‘ensuring that environmental safety audits are done to pick up anything that should have been fixed and hasn’t, and identifying any new changes to the workplace that might pose a risk.’
For Jen, the best thing about being an HSR is ‘seeing the changes’ they work for come to fruition, and their workplace being safer for it. ‘Every time we’ve achieved changes that we know make our colleagues and patients safer, it’s a celebration.’
In addition to the changes to the nurses’ station, Jen singles out the perfusion cleaning as a significant win. ‘We had staff suffering with respiratory symptoms from exposure to a dangerous chemical,’ she explains. ‘It has been a long road to get that one fixed and it went all the way to the top of the management chain. That can feel really intimidating. But we persevered and we know that our department is safer for it.’
