Misreported or banked up annual leave has cost ACT Health millions of dollars and could be putting clinical safety at risk, an internal audit found.
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The 2017 report, released under freedom of information laws, found significant issues with the management of leave. It showed there was a $104 million annual leave liability of its employees in the 2015-16 financial year.
It also showed that among 18 senior medical officers, there was more than $2 million of unprocessed leave in a five-year period, including one employee who had more than $320,000 worth of leave.
Half of employees in the chief of clinical operations and critical care branches had exceeded the annual leave threshold.
However, there was no proactive approach to managing the reduction of high leave balances of staff, despite 37 per cent of senior medical officers exceeding the threshold of allowable leave.
"[There are] risks in not managing staff recreational welfare which may cause impacts to clinical safety," the report stated.
The audit said widespread misreporting of annual leave was putting the organisation at risk and without internal compliance of leave among staff there was a risk of fraud or misappropriation.
"System deficiencies have contributed to the mismanagement of leave processing."
"Testing indicated large numbers of staff carrying leave balances in excess of acceptable levels outlined under each respective ACT Health enterprise agreement."
In November, an annual reports hearing was told staff with high amounts of leave banked up had their annual leave requests rejected.
At the time of the hearing, Canberra Health Services chief executive Bernadette McDonald said staff were encouraged to take their allocated leave each year.
"Without a formal annual leave usage plan for staff with high balances, there is a risk that liabilities for ACT Health will remain excessive," the audit said.
Senior medical officers within ACT Health were found to complete annual leave forms manually, rather than through online systems, leaving it prone to errors.
Employees using online systems to lodge leave were using a version more than 20 years old, only being updated in July this year.
A former ACT Health employee said they saw multiple instances of staff taking leave without it being taken off the overall balance, with some getting paid twice for the same amount of leave.
Four recommendations were made to ACT Health which were to develop an annual leave plan for those exceeding the threshold, remove manual forms and move operations online, and standardise the online system for annual leave.
In a statement, Ms McDonald said work was under way on improving annual leave liabilities. She denied fraud had occurred as a result of the issues identified in the report.
"It can be challenging to balance the annual leave of clinical staff with the clinical requirements of running a clinical service and ensuring patients get the best possible care when and where they need it," Ms McDonald said.
"Internal audit programs looking into issues such as annual leave are common across all jurisdictions."
At the time of the audit, ACT Health had more than 7000 employees.
Ms McDonald said manual leave forms are no longer in use as the ACT public service works towards a new automated system for the leave application process.
"Managers and employees have greater visibility over leave accruals," she said.
"I will be working with my executive team to make further improvements to annual leave management."
