To ensure we carry out our roles to the highest standard of integrity and help maintain community confidence and trust in our health service, all employees are provided with clear expectations set out in the Monash Health Code of Conduct, iCare values, and the Fraud and Corruption Framework.
Specifically, employees are expected to:
- Act honestly and in good faith, and in the best interests of Monash Health
- Carry out their duties according to law, using due care and diligence
- Provide safe, high quality and timely care.
There can be significant consequences for an employee if these codes and frameworks are breached. Some recent examples include:
- dishonestly claiming payments for shifts not worked
- using false medical certificates to attempt to claim paid sick leave.
These types of acts of dishonesty are treated seriously, and employees involved in this conduct face termination of their employment, action to recover the misappropriated funds, and being reported to Victoria Police and/or AHPRA.
Monash Health and our community places considerable trust in employees to do the right thing and act appropriately.
There are steps that both employees and managers must take to uphold diligent practices around claiming and approving sick leave.
Manager responsibilities
Medical Certificates
- Ensure medical certificates are provided wherever they are required in support of an application for leave
- Ensure that the original certificate is available for inspection
- Read medical certificates supplied in support of an application for leave
- Where there is any doubt about the authenticity of a certificate:
- ensure that the original is retained pending authentication
- make appropriate enquiries to ensure that the certificate is authentic
- report any concerns to a People and Culture business partner.
Kronos Managers
- Ensure that entries being approved are accurate
- When there is no Kronos record of an employee being in attendance at work, seek and obtain verification that the employee was at work for the shift claimed by them
- Remind employees who are using Kronos for their shifts that they are required to sign in and sign out or they might not be paid for that shift until their attendance is verified.
Employee responsibilities
- Where it is not possible or practical to provide the original of a medical certificate at the time a request for leave is made (such as when working out of office and having to provide a copy of a medical certificate), employees should ensure that the original of any medical certificate is retained and is available for inspection if required.
- Knowingly making a false claim for wages (including using or attempting to use a false medical certificate) is a serious criminal offence, with consequences including termination of your employment, recovery of all wrongfully received amounts, and referral to Victoria Police.
If you need to familiarise yourself with the expectations, please review the Monash Health Code of Conduct and the Fraud and Corruption Framework on PROMPT.
Approved by Peter Ryan