Allied health professionals and assistants career pathways

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 Practice Profiles:

Allied Health Peer Assessment Process (AHPAP)

The overall administration and coordination of the Allied Health Peer Assessment Process ( AHPAP) panels for permanent and temporary employees sits with your Local Health Network (LHN) Human Resources Department. Please contact your local HR division to be advised of AHPAP panel dates within your LHN.

For more information on this, see:

Applying

All completed Application Form for Allied Health Peer Assessment Process 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 panel assessment and outcome forms are provided for the Local Health Network (LHN) Human Resources Department and Allied Health Managers and Senior Clinicians to assist in assessing applications:

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 local LHN Human Resources.

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

The Office of Professional Leadership (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 Directive for the Governance Framework for Advanced Scope of Practice Roles and Extended Scope of Practice Roles in SA Health (PDF 505KB).

The Policy Directive applies to the nursing, midwifery and allied 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.

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 2MB).

The Ministerial Taskforce on health practitioner expanded scope of practice

Queensland Health has recently undertaken “The Ministerial Taskforce on health practitioner expanded scope of practice” which was established 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 Assistant (AHA) transistion

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

AHA transition resources:

Further information

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