Allied health professionals and assistants career pathways

Discover a range of allied and scientific health careers

Interested in a career in health, but not sure where to start? A career as an allied or scientific health professional may be the right fit for you. These professions are in demand, with many employment opportunities across the state.

For personal insights from our staff about 12 different allied and scientific health careers, check out our series of short videos. They show the clinical diversity of each profession and opportunities of working in regional SA, plus comments from our staff reflecting on their own personal career pathway.

Explore allied and scientific health careers with the people who are living them.

Interested in taking a closer look? Step into the world of allied health by doing the free Virtual Intern allied health online work experience.

Allied Health Practice Profiles

The Allied Health Practice Profiles are for use by allied health professions when reviewing the services they provide to SA Health clients. Allied health services cover many clinical areas and whilst this allows for flexibility and responsiveness, it is also important for allied health services to be able to clearly articulate why they provide specific services or why they refer on to other services. In this environment of change and models of care development it is important that professions are clear and consistent across the state in their communication about what is provided to clients in SA Health.

Each practice profile outlines the scope of practice that is common amongst allied health professionals (Core Practice Profile) alongside the key work practices for each profession (Specific Practice Profile). The practice profiles are intended as a guide for service provision and are not a restrictive or conclusive list.

These profiles will assist allied health professions when reviewing their services, to identify both limitations and opportunities within service provision. For example, identifying work that is no longer supported by the business unit where referral to other services is required or identify opportunities to ensure full core business services are provided across the continuum.

Allied Health Peer Assessment Process (AHPAP)

The overall administration and coordination of the AHPAP panels is under the remit your Local Health Network (LHN) human resources department. Please contact your local human resources department to be advised of AHPAP panel dates within your LHN.

For more information on this, see:

Applying

Completed AHPAP application forms should be emailed to the human resources department of your Local Health Network.

Posted forms will no longer be accepted.

Assessment information for AHPAP panels

The following resources are provided to assist LHN human resources staff, Allied Health Managers and Senior Clinicians in completing the panel assessment process:

Progression of psychologists

Workforce Operations have finalised the process for psychologists seeking progression from the AHP2 to the AHP3 level (for accredited supervision of other psychologists):

Completed forms are to be submitted to your LHN human resources department.

Advanced Scope of Practice and Extended Scope of Practice Roles in SA Health

The Clinical Collaborative (which includes the Nursing and Midwifery Office, the Allied and Scientific Health Office and the Office of the Chief Medical Officer) in consultation with SA Health sites and services, have developed a Policy for the Clinical Governance for Advanced Practice and Extended Scope of Practice Roles Policy (PDF 308KB).

The Policy applies to the nursing, midwifery, allied and scientific health professions and provides for a consistent, systematic approach to the decision-making, planning, implementation, and evaluation/monitoring of advanced and extended scope of practice roles across SA Health.

Occupational therapy resources

The State-wide Occupational Therapy Advisory Group has undertaken a project that explored the current developments, initiatives, competencies and framework both nationally and internationally, for Occupational Therapy advanced practice scope of practice roles. This framework has been developed to guide the successful development, implementation and evaluation of advanced practice roles within palliative care for Occupational Therapy (OT) in SA Health. View the Advanced Scope of Practice Framework: Occupational Therapy in Palliative Care (PDF 1.7MB).

Speech pathology resources

The SA Fibreoptic Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing (FEES) Working Party have developed a competency program for experienced speech pathologists to be credentialed in FEES. FEES allows visualisation and evaluation of the structures and functions of the swallowing mechanism using a fibreoptic scope passed trans-nasally.

The program has been endorsed by the State-wide Speech Pathology Advisory Group and key medical consultants/sponsors from Central Adelaide LHN and Southern Adelaide LHN. View the South Australian Acute Hospital Program for Credentialing Speech Pathologists in the Extended and Advanced Practice Role of Independent Fibreoptic Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing (FEES) 2019 (PDF 1.4MB)

The Ministerial Taskforce on health practitioner expanded scope of practice

Queensland Health established “The Ministerial Taskforce on health practitioner expanded scope of practice” in 2017 to provide recommendations to the Minister for Health on expanding the scope of practice for health practitioners in Queensland Health. The Ministerial Taskforce found that in Queensland Health:

  • allied health professionals are educated to competently undertake a greater range of tasks and responsibilities than are often used
  • opportunities exist to extend the scope of practice of some allied health professionals in line with reforms in other Australian states and internationally to improve patient satisfaction, clinical outcomes and reduce waiting times
  • the support workforce can be used more effectively to enable allied health professionals to work to their full scope of practice
  • many of the current hours of operation do not align with the needs of patients and a number of barriers exist to realising the full capacity of this workforce.

A range of activities have been implemented to support expanded allied health scope of practice in QLD with details found in the 2017 “Ministerial Taskforce on health practitioner expanded scope of practice – Implementation phase completion report”.

See the Queensland Health website for further information.

Allied Health Assistants (AHA) governance and management

The classification stream of Allied Health Assistant (AHA) was introduced to SA Health in 2017 through the South Australian Modern Public Sector Enterprise Agreement. The Enterprise Agreement details work level definitions and outlines career progression for staff who work assisting Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) in the provision of allied health services and who are directly linked to AHP staff through clinical governance, task delegation and supervision. The documents below support the operational management and governance of AHA stream roles:

Further information

For further information on allied health career pathways, email the Allied and Scientific Health Office.