The healthcare provider at Australia’s offshore detention centres failed to undertake police checks for all medical staff on Manus Island and lost a working-with-children check, a damning audit has found.

Guardian Australia published a series of investigations in July 2015 about how IHMS provided healthcare services for asylum seekers.

Leaked documents showed IHMS failed to meet medical targets, included incorrect data in reports and admitted it was “inevitable” fraud would occur as it tried to meet government standards. The documents also raised concerns about failures to undertake working-with-children checks and police checks on Manus Island.

IHMS, a subsidiary of the global healthcare giant International SOS, has received more than $1.6bn in government funding to provide asylum seeker healthcare in Australia and on Manus Island and Nauru.

The department commissioned three separate audits and reviews into the allegations, obtained under freedom of information laws by Guardian Australia, but resisted releasing the most serious findings against IHMS in the reports.

Following a review of the decision by the Australian information commissioner, the department has now released further details of the audits.

The audits conducted in August and September 2016 – two were internal and one was conducted by KPMG – contain adverse findings by the immigration department against IHMS including:

The quality of IHMS’s reporting was often poor and relied on the department querying or discovering errors, and there was poor analysis and communication of data to the department.

IHMS failed to provide evidence that data errors were reported to the department through its own initiative.

IHMS filed incorrect monthly reports. The audits confirm that four staff were deployed in January 2013 to Manus without police checks. It then gave incorrect evidence to the review team in suggesting that the clearances were obtained six weeks after their deployment, when in fact they were outstanding to April 2013 and October 2013. IHMS also suggested it was not required to undertake police checks for foreign clinicians.

IHMS lost a working-with-children check of one employee in Perth and failed to keep a copy on file.

IHMS failed to provide evidence it provided appropriate vaccination coverage for children, child health milestones or specialist referrals.

IHMS acted in a very aggressive commercial manner in executing it’s healthcare contract, and there were clear conflicts between clinical care and commercial objectives outlined.

There was unclear coverage of code of conduct training by IHMS and limited fraud management.

One of the internal reviews of the allegations by the detention health services branch found that: “The quality of IHMS’s reporting, at the time of the allegations, was sometimes poor and often relied on the department querying or discovering errors through its own quality assurance processes.

“In relation to working-with-children checks, IHMS has been unable to provide evidence that the required check had taken place for one staff member in Perth. This is of major concern due to the potential impact this could have upon child detainees.”

It said that a “review of IHMS assurance processes and record keeping around working-with-children checks is warranted”.

The second review, an external audit by KPMG, also found that complaints by asylum seekers were “often buried in a health record”. It also reiterated concerns about vaccinations and healthcare milestones, and said that some recommendations from earlier internal audits had still not been implemented.

The review also found: “IHMS acted very commercially. If asked a question they would only answer the specific question, but not consider answering any potential follow-on question, unless asked.”

Despite the findings, the immigration department is still resisting releasing some of the most serious allegations of IHMS contained in the reports.

In a revised freedom of information decision letter, the department’s freedom of information officer wrote: “In this instance release of the information would reveal commercially sensitive information including the content of departmental discussion about a service provider’s (IHMS’s) performance.”

He wrote that the information could “adversely impact the working relationship between the department and the contracted service provider (IHMS) and jeopardise the ability of the department to obtain detailed information from any service provider when reviewing allegations of inappropriate conduct”.

Following Guardian Australia’s Healthcare in detention series, the National Audit Office initiated an audit of healthcare in Australia’s onshore detention centres.

The audit disclosed the department had fined IHMS $300,000 for healthcare failings between July and December 2015 alone, and made a series of recommendations to improve healthcare service management by the immigration department.

The immigration department has faced other allegations of poor management in the past 12 months.

A further audit of the offshore detention centre management found the department spent $2.2bn on its offshore detention regime without proper authorisation, and criticised the department’s management of the contracts.

IHMS said in statement: “Following the allegations published in the Guardian in 2015, IHMS fully cooperated with the department and provided a wealth of information to address those allegations. IHMS disputes several findings of the review and has raised its concerns with the department.”

The immigration department said that while the reviews found that there were instances of reporting errors and delays in addressing contractual compliance, there was “no evidence to support allegations of fraud”.



“The issues identified in the review have been addressed through a significantly strengthened performance management framework and through the implementation of a higher level of rigour around compliance monitoring of the immigration detention health services contract,” a statement said.