Canberra Health Services, ACT government really want a good news story

For years failures at the hospital, lengthy emergency department wait times and a toxic culture in some departments have dominated the headlines.

The hospital's reputation has been battered and bureaucrats are desperate to turn this around.

When they had a staff survey showing an improvement in workplace culture, they would have thought they were on to a winner.

Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith and various officials have recently been spruiking this survey's results.

Never mind the results, by Canberra Health Service's own admission in an internal memo, were not statistically valid.

We're now told that isn't the case because apparently there was a "response validation test" conducted later which said it was fine to rely on the results.

Of course health officials will promote anything which indicates an improvement in culture.

But they probably wouldn't be so quick to promote the survey if the results had indicated a decline in the workplace culture. If the results did happen to leak, spinners would be quick to point out the survey was not statistically valid.

Canberra Health Services is also attempting to overhaul its image through an $800,000 rebrand.

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The two-year contract includes new branding, the development of a communication guide and an "employee valuation proposition" to "define who we are [and] what we stand for".

The rebrand may be a valid and important ambition to attract the best staff but many would question how far a rebrand would go to improve actual services at the hospital.

Ms Stephen-Smith told ABC radio this week it was important positive stories about the system were spoken about and suggested all the bad press was having an effect on recruitment.

"When we hear these negative messages that's going to make it more difficult to recruit," she said. "We really need to get out the positive stories about how fantastic some of our teams are in working together and supporting one another."

There is no denying there are many caring, dedicated, hardworking staff across the service and many positive stories about how they have worked together.

But this does not negate the bad stories. These need be reported until they no longer exist.

If Canberra Health Services really want to reform their image then they should redouble efforts to turn around emergency department wait times.

That would be a positive news story.

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