Mr Craig McGlynn1
1NSW Ambulance, Sydney Olympic Park, Australia
Biography:
Craig McGlynn is Director, Professional Standards at NSW Ambulance, leading the Professional Conduct & Integrity function. He oversees serious misconduct, integrity risk, and complaint trends, with a focus on early intervention, procedural fairness, and practical system safeguards that reduce harm, strengthen leadership decision-making and build workforce risk confidence.
Abstract:
Aims
To demonstrate how ambulance services can reduce misconduct risk by moving beyond a reactive disciplinary model and adopting a prevention-focused systems approach that strengthens workforce safety, patient safety and organisational trust.
Methods
This presentation draws on practical experience within a large public ambulance service and uses de-identified complaint themes, conduct matters and governance lessons to identify recurring system factors that contribute to misconduct risk. It examines the role of early triage, local management, risk assessment, timely communication, escalation pathways and organisational learning in preventing matters from progressing into formal misconduct processes.
Results
Many matters that ultimately require formal misconduct management are preceded by missed opportunities for earlier intervention. Common themes include delayed escalation, unclear behavioural expectations, insufficient local support, poor communication with affected parties, and limited use of complaint trends as prevention intelligence. A structured prevention model, including front-end assessment, proportionate pathway setting, regular stakeholder updates, review of interim controls and leadership feedback loops, supports earlier resolution, reduces psychosocial risk and improves confidence in the fairness of the process.
Conclusions
Misconduct prevention in ambulance services should be understood as a leadership, professional standards and safety function, not simply a disciplinary response. Treating complaints and conduct concerns as actionable system intelligence allows services to intervene earlier, reduce harm, support better decision-making and strengthen professional legitimacy. Ambulance leaders have an opportunity to use integrity systems not only to respond to misconduct, but to prevent it.