Allied Health Assistants (AHAs) are essential to enhancing the capacity and capability of Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) and substantially promote national strategic goals such as increasing service access, optimising scope of practice, workforce growth and creating a sustainable pipeline. 

Australia's first National Allied Health Workforce Strategy is under development. Further details about the Strategy, and a link to access the draft, are included at the end of this news article.

AHANA provided a submission to the Chief Allied Health Officer in July 2024 advocating that AHAs - as a key and growing component of the allied health workforce - should, both strategically and logically, be included in the National Allied Health Workforce Strategy. You can read AHANA's article on initial submission here.

A draft Strategy was published for public consultation on 20 January 2025, with consultation closing on 3 March 2025.

The draft strategy - once again - explicitly excludes AHAs as out of scope, while it does acknowledge the roles of AHAs in enabling allied health professionals working to their full scope of practice. 

AHANA provided a response to the Chief Allied Health Officer through the consultation process, which again argues for inclusion of AHAs in the Strategy (or, alternatively, inclusion via a supplementary component to be developed and integrated within a three year period). The submission, amongst other things, outlines why AHAs the decision not to include AHAs in the Strategy is at odds with the imperative of optimising workforce capacity to meet demand for allied health services as well as other national imperatives such as productivity, service access and jobs growth. 

You can read AHANA's submission, in full, at the link below.

  

About the National Allied Health Workforce Strategy

From the Department of Health and Aged Care's consultation landing page:

The Department of Health and Aged Care, on behalf of the Australian Government, is working with state and territory governments to develop a National Allied Health Workforce Strategy, as recommended in the Independent review of Australia’s regulatory settings relating to overseas health practitioners Final Report.

Development of the Draft Strategy has been led by a Strategy Steering Group. The group comprises Chief Allied Health Officers from each state and territory, as well as senior executive from several Australian government agencies. An Advisory Group, comprised of members from the Allied Health Industry Reference Group, also provides advice and supports the Steering Group in this role.

You can read the draft strategy at the Department of Health and Aged Care's consultation landing page.