Enter AHANA
AHANA is Australia’s first national professional association dedicated exclusively to the Allied Health Assistant workforce, providing a self-regulation framework that supports safe practice, professional recognition, and workforce development.
AHA Workforce: Diverse, Dispersed and Disconnected
The AHA workforce is one of the most diverse and fragmented in the Australian health and care landscape.
New AHANA membership data highlights just how broad the workforce really is. AHAs work across at least 20 different service settings, often spanning multiple sectors simultaneously.
These include:
- Disability services (more than 50% of members provide services in disability, with many also working across other sectors)
- Public hospitals and community health services
- Private allied health practices
- Residential aged care facilities
- Education settings, including early childhood and schools
- First Nations community-controlled health services
- Justice and corrections systems
- Mobile services and care delivered in private homes
- Not-for-profit and community organisations
This data reinforces what many in the sector already know: AHAs are not bound by profession, funding stream, or service setting.
Instead, they represent a versatile, mobile and increasingly essential workforce, enabling multidisciplinary teams to deliver effective care — particularly at a time when health and care systems are facing growing demand and workforce shortages.
The Case for Self-Regulation
Unlike many other health workforces, AHAs are not registered under the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (NRAS).
In most cases, there has historically been no formal positive regulatory mechanism governing the workforce, despite AHAs delivering frontline care, supporting therapeutic interventions, and enabling allied health professionals to work at top of scope.
AHANA has stepped into this gap.
As the national professional body for AHAs, AHANA provides:
- Professional standards and codes of practice
- Ethical practice frameworks
- Career development pathways
- Workforce advocacy
- Peer connection and professional community
- Guidance on supervision and delegation
AHANA’s role is to help create consistency in standards of practice, while recognising the diversity of settings in which AHAs work.
In other words, AHANA seeks to standardise excellence — not uniformity.
Building Workforce Identity and Capability
AHANA is more than a professional standards body.
It is also a community of practice, built by and for Allied Health Assistants, with the aim of:
- strengthening workforce identity
- improving quality and safety across diverse service settings
- supporting mobility and recognition across sectors
- improving supervision and delegation frameworks
- creating leadership and career pathways within the AHA workforce
As health, aged care and disability systems continue to evolve, there will be increasing reliance on well-designed support roles and effective task delegation.
AHAs are central to this future — but only if the workforce is properly supported, recognised, and connected.
Join the Movement
With a rapidly growing national membership, AHANA is becoming the professional home the AHA workforce has long needed.
Whether you are an Allied Health Assistant, an allied health professional supervising AHAs, an employer or service manager, or a policy-maker interested in workforce reform, there is a role for you in supporting this transformation.
There has never been a better time for AHAs to strengthen their connection with their workforce by joining AHANA.
Practising membership fees are reduced to just $99 (GST exclusive) for a limited time to make membership accessible to more AHAs across Australia.
Because a strong health and care system depends on strong support workforces.