SA Pathology, which has run the state’s COVID-19 testing services since the start of the pandemic, released a consultation paper to health workers and unions on Monday proposing a restructure of its pre-analytical services.

Pre-analytical services cover all pathology testing functions before a specimen reaches the lab for analysis.

SA Pathology’s consultation paper proposes removing 21.91 full-time equivalent (FTE) registered and enrolled nurses from pre-analytical services in metropolitan Adelaide and redeploying them into other areas of the health system.

A further eight FTE nurses are proposed to be removed from SA Pathology’s pre-analytical services in regional South Australia.

The consultation paper says this will be offset by adding 52 “operational services officers” in metropolitan Adelaide and a further 11 in regional South Australia.

In total, SA Pathology estimates the changes will grow the combined metropolitan and regional pre-analytical workforce by 23.89 FTEs.

SA Pathology today confirmed the review and said: “There will be no redundancies of nurses as part of this process.”

“One key element of the review is to ensure that the skill set and qualifications of our staff are matched with the duties of their role to provide the best patient experience across all sites,” the agency said in a statement.

“The balance of phlebotomy and nursing staff is critical to ensure the continued delivery of a high quality service, which is why we are seeking the feedback from staff on the ground.

“Any qualified nurse not kept in their existing role under the proposed change will be offered positions within critical areas of the health system, in line with the relevant training and skills of each individual. This will help meet the demand in our LHNs and hospitals.”

SA Pathology also said “no formal decision has yet been made” on the restructure and the proposal would be out to consultation for four weeks.

“This four-week consultation period will allow SA Pathology to identify, explore, and mitigate any impacts to staff, patients and stakeholders,” it said.

“Any proposed changes will not impact the high quality care delivered by SA Pathology or the services it delivers to our patients.”

But the proposed restructure has already prompted criticism from the Health Services Union and the nurses’ union, which earlier this week was applauding the Malinauskas Government for securing a pay rise for 21,000 public sector nurses.

Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation SA branch secretary Professor Elizabeth Dabars today said the union was “deeply concerned and strongly [opposed]” to the proposed restructure.

She said “two-thirds” of SA Pathology’s nursing workforce was set to be redeployed under the proposal.

“We are highly concerned about public safety and the negative impact this will have on the quality and safety of services delivered to the community,” Dabars said in a statement.

“Many clients accessing the service are complex and require complex care.

“In addition to our concerns for the community, we are also concerned for our members. We know these staff are highly skilled and were much sought after during covid. To kick them out the door following covid is not only short sighted but fundamentally wrong.”

Health Services Union SA branch secretary Billy Elrick also voiced opposition to the proposal.

“The HSU is disappointed to see SA Pathology cutting nursing jobs,” he said in a statement.

“Patients are already experiencing significant wait times for services and leaving the remaining nursing staff with an onerous workload is an unacceptable clinical risk.”

Health Minister Chris Picton emphasised that SA Pathology would be consulting on the draft proposal over the next four weeks, and that “any nurse will have a job across SA Health”.

“Our government is very clear that we will be having no redundancies of frontline staff,” he said this afternoon.

“[SA Pathology] is a critical service for South Australia, we will keep investing in SA Pathology and even, of course, the proposal that’s being put forward is about increasing the staff numbers at SA Pathology.

“SA Pathology will be undertaking this consultation looking obviously at the models interstate, and the advice that they’ve been providing… as part of this consultation is that they have a very different model to every other state and every private provider in how those services are being provided.”

Opposition health spokesperson Ashton Hurn, whose party in government threatened to privatise SA Pathology if the agency could not find savings, said “reshuffling the deck chairs” in the health system would not address the challenges being faced by the state’s hospitals.

“This is an agency that absolutely worked around the clock through the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic to keep us safe,” Hurn told reporters today.

“What we are hearing now is very real evidence from frontline workers who are telling us this is a reform that has been sprung on them and that they, as frontline workers, are worried about what this means for patient safety.”

Asked whether the Liberal Party’s comments on SA Pathology could be trusted given its previous threat to privatise the service, Hurn said: “There were certainly reviews that were ongoing, I think that is a commonplace for any government.”

“In fact, it was the Labor government that also looked at SA Pathology in 2016 and ’17.

“But throughout the COVID-19 pandemic [SA Pathology nurses] absolutely proved themselves in spades, and these frontline workers, these very nurses that are about to lose their jobs and be shuffled elsewhere, are the ones that are going to suffer.”