Strategic optimisation of the allied health assistant workforce one step at a time: first step, workforce governance

Allied health assistants (AHAs) are a vital workforce in Australia, supporting allied health professionals (AHPs) to expand service access and progress care, ensuring workforce sustainability. Tiered models of care that include AHAs can facilitate top of scope and advanced scope work for AHPs, increasing staff satisfaction and retention. Despite the increased research interest on AHAs, barriers to maximising the potential of this workforce persist. The Victorian Department of Health recently released recommendations aimed at optimising the AHA workforce, with inadequate workforce governance recognised as a barrier. Centralising governance processes for AHAs ensures a single point of accountability and standardisation of processes, positively affecting patient safety and quality of care. To enable suitable AHA governance structures, recognition of the importance of this workforce in local and national strategies is required. However, there are few existing state-based frameworks dedicated to AHA governance, and the current draft National Allied Health Workforce Strategy does not include AHAs, which represents a missed opportunity to strengthen and grow this important element of the allied health workforce.