Cath Maloney, CEO of SARRAH (Services for Australian Rural and Remote Allied Health), publicly recognised AHANA and its initiatives in a high-profile panel discussion last week, held by webinar. 

While outlining SARRAH’s efforts to grow the allied health assistant workforce in rural and regional Australia, Cath pointed to the real need for national training and competency standards to meet workforce demand.  

“If you were to do a search on Seek today, you would see 3,000+ allied health assistant jobs advertised weekly. Despite this, allied health assistants were not included in the National Skills Priority List, [and] there are currently no national training and competency standards to support this rapid growth,” she said.
“Just in the last couple of months, we have had the establishment of the Allied Health Assistants National Association. AHANA is working toward self-regulation, including the development of national training and competency standards, and we’re very supportive of the work that AHANA is doing.” 

The webinar was hosted by HumanAbility, the government-appointed Job Skills Council (JSC) for the Health and Human Services and Early Educators sectors, established by a consortium led by the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association (or AHHA). The Providing the health system with a strategic voice in vocational education and training public webinar was the first formal engagement by the JSC with the public, commencing its role of providing its sectors with a stronger, more strategic voice in ensuring its role of providing its sectors with a stronger, more strategic voice in ensuring Australia's vocational education and training sector delivers stronger outcomes for learners and employers.

HumanAbility’s role will be particularly important going forward, given the government’s skills reform agenda, which includes strategic workforce planning and proposed large scale changes to the nationally registered training qualification architecture/structure. In addition to Cath Maloney, the webinar panel included Rob Bonner (Interim CEO, HumanAbility), Yasmin King (CEO, SkillsIQ), and Kylie Woolcock (CEO, AHHA).

The webinar focused on challenges to the health and human services systems (such as an ageing workforce and burn-out rates), the incoming JSC’s role with respect to health and vocational education and training, as well as the need for consultation on key topics. 

Allied health assistant-specific topics included: the need for AHA qualifications to be designed with more input from the Allied Health Professions to ensure fitness for purpose; qualification completion rates; and current funding barriers to increasing the proportion of AHAs with qualifications.

AHANA looks forward to engaging with the JSC, Allied Health Professionals and peak bodies, education providers, and industry on behalf of the Allied Health Assistant workforce in its role as peak body. Close collaboration is essential for achieving the best outcomes possible for all involved, and ultimately end users of the Australian health and human services systems.

You can view the discussion here.