SPECIAL PRESENTATION: opening address
Dr Anne-marie Boxall is the Chief Allied Health Officer and Assistant Secretary in the Allied Health and Service Integration Branch in the Australian Government Department of Health. Prior to this, Anne-marie worked in the Department on long-term health system reform. She has also worked at the Commonwealth Treasury, Commonwealth Parliamentary Library, the National Rural Health Alliance, and the Australian Health and Hospital Association. She began her career as a physiotherapist, where she worked in the public and private sectors.
Anne-marie is also an Adjunct Associate Professor with the Menzies Centre for Health Policy at The University of Sydney and has published on a wide range of health policy topics. In 2019-20, Anne-marie was the Australian Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Policy and Practice at Columbia University in the United States.
PRESENTATION notes
Introduction
· Acknowledge the traditional custodians – the Dharawal people and pay respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
- Extend acknowledgement to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples joining us today.
- Thank you to Australian Society of Rehabilitation Counsellors for inviting me to give the opening address at your 2023 National Conference.
Chief Allied Health Officer (CAHO) role
· Appointed to the CAHO role nearly three years ago (July 2020).
· Primary objectives of my role are to:
o Raise awareness value of allied health care in Australia.
o Build and strengthen Australian Government engagement with the allied health sector.
o Promote inclusion of allied health in relevant policies, programs and reforms.
· Over 200,000 allied health professionals working across primary care, aged care, hospitals, disability, education and more.
· My role is exciting as I can represent the allied health sector as a whole.
The current state of Allied Health
· Critical shortages of allied health professionals Australia wide, as indicated on both the 2021 and 2022 National Skills Priority list.
· Rehabilitation counsellors are currently shortage in Victoria and the Northern Territory, with demand continuing to grow.
· The Australian Government has signalled investment in multidisciplinary care, strengthening Medicare, and progressing primary care reform.
· The 2023 Budget had a particular focus on the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce Report, released in February, which will lead to broader reform in primary care.
o It acknowledges that health care needs to be multidisciplinary, with health professionals working to full scope of practice.
o Funding of $750 million has been committed to deliver investments in primary care reform identified by the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce
· Busy time in allied health, particularly leading up to the Budget and delivering on commitments made in the last Budget, which I will touch on now.
Free Interpreting Service
o Since October 2022, allied health professionals including rehabilitation counsellors have had access to the Free Interpreter Service.
o Interpreter services can be provided, at no charge, when privately practicing allied health professionals are providing services in select Local Government Areas.
- An important program, as we know that deferring or avoiding necessary allied health care because of language barriers leads to poorer health and economic outcomes.
- If you are interested in finding out more information, my office ran an information webinar on December 7 last year, available on the health website.
Auslan Scoping Study
My team are also working to address barriers for Deaf people in accessing interpreters.
- People often rely on family members to assist with interpreting which can lead to miscommunication risks and family pressure.
- This can lead to poor treatment and inappropriate post-care that may impact recovery, health and wellbeing.
- The Australian Government has funded a review of the current usage of Auslan services in primary care settings, to identify enablers and barriers to the uptake of Auslan interpreting.
- There a survey open until the end of June for all primary care health professionals, regardless of the level of experience working with Auslan interpreters. I would encourage all rehabilitation counsellors working in primary care to consider participating. ASORC will be able to circulate the survey to members.
Digital Health
o A big piece of work revolves around identifying and understand the barriers behind low rate of uptake of digital health integration in the allied health sector.
- Trying to identify what strategies are needed to progress the development and availability of My Health Record-enabled clinical information software, and the adoption of these by allied health professionals.
- Thank you to ASORC and any members who participated in consultations on this project, to ensure the views of Rehabilitation Counsellors are included as allied health digital integration progresses.
- This work is in final stages, with early findings suggesting that there is a complex ecosystem of issues that limit allied health professionals use of My Health Record.
- We will be receiving the final report containing recommended actions this month.
Budget 2023
Investing in a modernised My Health Record
o To follow on from this digital health work, the Australian Government announced at Budget an investment of $6.1 million over 3 years to support allied health professionals to develop connections to My Health Record.
- Will be alongside a comprehensive marketing and education campaign to promote My Health Record use amongst allied health professionals.
- Will ensure that all members of a patient’s primary care team have access to their key health information, including diagnostic investigation results, to support clinical decision making at the point of care.
Primary Health Network (PHN) commissioning and forum
o A major piece of work announced at Budget was $79.4m over four years and ongoing, to strengthen the role PHNs play in commissioning multidisciplinary health care teams.
- Commissioning will be focused on supporting smaller general practices that do not have the size or scale to engage the range of health professionals needed to provide effective multidisciplinary care.
- Funds will be available to supplement care in all settings, including residential aged care or Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services; but types of health services will need to be bases on local needs analyses.
- Part of this measure will seek to extend PHN’s practice support role to private allied health practices – including the development of an allied health practice support toolkit.
- I am also working directly with the PHNs and have established a collaborative forum, to ensure the allied health sector can liaise better with them.
Scope of Practice Review
· $3 million in 2023-24 and 2024-25 to undertake a review that examines current models of care against community needs and recommends appropriate expansion to scopes of practices and models of care for a range of health professionals providing primary care services (both registered and self-regulated, including medical practitioners, nurses, midwives, and allied health).
· The Review will involve extensive consultation with stakeholders including state and territory governments, health services, peak bodies, employers, relevant health professional Boards and education and training institutions.
· There are also a number of wider measures that may influence the allied health sector. An email outline of these was sent to our stakeholders after Budget, including ASORC.
· Encourage you to review the Budget papers.
Workforce issues
· A strong health system needs adequate workforce.
· Acutely aware of the workforce shortages and recruitment difficulties across many allied health professions, and many different sectors.
· We want all health professionals to be operating at the top of their scope of practice, while maintaining the safety and quality of services.
· We know that shortages can blur scope of practice boundaries, for example in your sector I am aware of issues with Verification of Competency (VOC) assessments, which traditionally are the responsibility of rehabilitation counsellors but are now being performed by other health professionals in areas of workforce shortage.
Health Workforce Taskforce
· A Health Workforce Taskforce (taskforce) was established in August 2022 to progress health workforce priorities identified by Health Ministers.
· The taskforce is responsible for developing and overseeing the implementation of a suite of short-, medium and long-term strategies to ensure a sufficient and sustainable current and future health workforce to meet the healthcare needs of Australians.
· This includes actions to address priority health workforce challenges across the health, mental health, aged care, and disability sectors, and with consideration of targeted service areas including rural, remote and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health.
· Three sub-teams (Tiger Teams) have been established under the taskforce to progress specific short- and medium-term priorities related to migration and visa processing; registration and assessment; and workforce intelligence.
Data
· All CAHOs in agreement that we need to strategically address these shortages moving forward, but first we need better data to know where these shortages are.
· The department recently commissioned an Allied Health Data Gap Analysis. It showed that there is not enough robust data on allied health workforce for governments to determine whether the workforce can meet current or projected demand for services.
· For your interest, it is available online to read on the department’s website.
· The government is still considering how to address the findings and recommendations of the Data Gap Analysis. The next step will need to be data improvement work so that we can have robust data to inform workforce planning.
National Allied Health Workforce Strategy
· The sector, and many independent workforce reports, are calling for a national Allied Health Workforce Strategy.
· This will require not only a Commonwealth agreement, but also agreement from all the states.
· I am working with the state and territory CAHOs to summarise the key issues that need addressing, and developing a plan for governments’ consideration.
· Both the nursing and medical workforces already have a national strategy. Allied Health is the largest health workforce in primary care.
Ways of engaging with the Commonwealth CAHO
· I encourage you to provide any issues or suggestions you have regarding allied health with ASORC, who can then raise them with me.
· You can also keep an eye on information on the Department of Health website under ‘allied health’.
· I have established an allied health industry reference group, which is a national forum to discuss key issues related to allied health.
· Outcomes from each meeting are published on the website.
· Our CAHO newsletter can also provide insight into all our current work plans and priorities. We are planning to issue next edition after the Budget. You can subscribe via the website.
Close
· Thank you for valuable work you do in helping to improve the health and wellbeing of our community.
· I wish you all the best for the coming year.
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