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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-11-13 Daily Xml
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Aged-Care CCTV

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (15:35): CCTV cameras in aged-care facilities is an issue I am very passionate about. As members know, I currently have a related bill on file awaiting a pilot of cameras in state-run facilities, announced by the health minister, and after SA-Best introduced him to respected UK provider Care Protect.

That company was subsequently engaged by SA Health for the project because of its expertise in providing an independent, resident safety and quality monitoring system that does not exist in Australia, and which has been operating successfully in the UK for several years. This pilot should be an Australian first, should it ever get off the ground, but I have grave concerns about the conduct and ability of the SA Health team in charge to deliver this project, after Care Protect abruptly quit.

The health minister said this was due to 'operational and technical issues that could not be resolved between the parties', but the reasons Care Protect gives go much deeper and raise further concerns about this mismanaged monolith. I seek leave to table a series of emails between Care Protect's MD Philip Scott and SA Health's appointed IT adviser Bret Morris, and others.

Leave granted.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: In these emails, Mr Scott raises serious allegations of probity, conflicts of interest and constantly changing demands and technical specifications by Mr Morris and others, which have created intolerable delays. From implementing Mr Scott's proven system, it has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare being run by people with no real expertise in this highly specialised area.

Mr Scott became increasingly concerned about the excessive due diligence approach by Mr Morris and Mr Chad Khoury, the agency's security adviser, despite already disclosing a significant amount of information about Care Protect's intellectual property. He feared his IP was at risk. The final straw was with the types of cameras to be used for the pilot.

Messrs Morris and Khoury rejected the Hikvision cameras used internationally by Care Protect, which seamlessly integrate with its system, citing largely unsubstantiated 'security concerns'. They wanted cameras with sophisticated in-built analytics like facial and numberplate recognition, loitering technology, and crowd density information.

Mr Scott maintains these features are not relevant in aged care and offered an alternative, but was rejected. Mr Scott's cameras—the very same used at the minister's own offices and other SA Health sites—cost $100 each. Those preferred by Mr Morris and Mr Khoury cost $1,000, claiming they complied with 'SA Health workplace surveillance policy', which suddenly materialised in this drawn-out process.

The more expensive cameras would also lead to a significant cost blowout of monitoring each resident from $20 a week to more than $52 a week. This demand for new cameras, which SA Health offered to buy, posed more problems, which I do not have time to go into today. Mr Scott was also concerned that if the cameras were owned by SA Health it would compromise the independence of the monitoring system and create further security fears for potential system breaches. But here is where it starts to look quite uncomfortable. In an email to me Mr Scott said, and I quote:

We had identified two individuals (namely Bret Morris and Chad Khoury) during our due diligence process on SAH, both of whom had very material and significant commercial interests in companies that in our opinion either had—or could have had—the potential to take our IP and in time utilise it to set up a service in direct competition with what we do.

Both the minister and SA Health's Cassie Mason have dismissed any conflict with the project and say that Metrixcare, the company in which Mr Morris is involved, has no interest in CCTV nor is he a board member or shareholder. However, Mr Morris, whose initial contract with the Department of the Premier and Cabinet was terminated in 2015, is still listed on his Twitter account as co-founder and director of healthcare analytics companies Gyre Digital and Metrixcare.

Under commonwealth regulations, there are severe penalties for public servants who take part in procurement projects when they have undisclosed outside interests. Those penalties should apply here, especially given the ICAC commissioner has recently identified systemic issues in SA Health. This is not a case of sour grapes. Care Protect made a considerable investment in South Australia and wanted to introduce its service with no capital cost to taxpayers.

It is extremely distressing that while our aged-care crisis, which has cost lives, continues, we remain a long way from seeing a solution that would reduce risks to residents and greatly improve the standard of care. That is why my colleague Connie Bonaros plans to call Mr Scott before the select committee into the state's health services that she chairs. We need to ensure that both sides of the story are heard.

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