There's no excuse for executive inaction at busy public hospitals

Indeed, hospitals are often ground zero for some of life's biggest moments. With some obvious exceptions, they're not places we seek out for joy. More often than not, hospitals are repositories of pain and uncertainty, fear and trauma.

But amid it all, we are right to expect high levels of safety, professionalism, reassurance and a sense of confidence and security when we pass through the doors.

So it's disconcerting each time we get a glimpse behind the corporate curtain, and gain an insight into what it might be like to work somewhere like the Canberra Hospital.

The most recent revelations are no exception. As reported earlier this week, staff trust in bosses within Canberra's public health system has declined, with the latest culture survey results showing only one-third of staff consider there is "high trust" in the executive team.

And staff at North Canberra Hospital (formerly Calvary) expressed even lower levels of trust with only one-quarter of staff expressing high trust in executives.

On the face of it, what staff think of their executive should be of no concern to the average punter - or patient in the case of hospitals. But when a poor workplace culture persists, it is almost guaranteed to trickle steadily down into interactions with the public.

Judging by his comments this week, this is something Canberra Health Services chief executive Dave Peffer seems to realise all too well.

"There is a growing sense of disconnect between the decision makers sitting in offices and those who are out on the floor providing care and that's something we're going to have to reconcile throughout the year," he said, following the revelation of workplace survey results.

"This sort of invisibility of executives in the organisation is something that we are going to have to stop."

There are light patches in the survey results, with a rise in the number of staff who trust frontline supervisors and team leaders.

But it's these leaders who have the unenviable task of wrangling staff, addressing culture problems and taking these concerns to their own superiors.

If, as these survey results suggest, their concerns are not heeded, the institution as a whole suffers. Canberra's public health system has been plagued with cultural issues over the years, and its regular culture surveys aren't always acted on.

It's a concern when leadership teams aren't willing to understand or act on the concerns of staff; it defeats the purpose of the hierarchy and jeopardises a hospital's ability to meet its core functions and responsibilities.

"I think from a workforce perspective, our workforce expects executives to be understanding those pressures and pain points and then working really hard to resolve that," Mr Peffer said earlier this week.

Executives may hold their positions by dint of years of experience, but this does not excuse them from having a direct responsibility to the people who use the services - people they may never meet or hear directly from.

As the Chinese proverb has it, the fish rots from the head. An executive team who responds inadequately to the concerns of its workforce will spread this indifference throughout, and the result will inevitably be a substandard institution plagued with problems from the ground up.