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RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)
Contents Vol 49(4)

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

Lucy Whelan A * , Catherine Wolters https://orcid.org/0009-0002-3865-3886 B , Marcus Gardner https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3853-0803 C , Hank Kim https://orcid.org/0009-0003-2981-2408 B , Kylie Saccotelli https://orcid.org/0009-0006-6243-8966 A and Dimitri Diacogiorgis https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5477-5645 D
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Monash Health, 246 Clayton Road, Clayton, Vic 3168, Australia.

B Alfred Health, 55 Commercial Road, Melbourne, Vic 3004, Australia.

C Bendigo Health, 100 Barnard Street, Bendigo, Vic 3550, Australia.

D Grampians Health, 1 Drummond Street N, Ballarat Central, Vic 3350, Australia.

* Correspondence to: lucy.whelan@monashhealth.org

Australian Health Review 49, AH25081 https://doi.org/10.1071/AH25081
Submitted: 11 April 2025  Accepted: 22 May 2025  Published: 5 June 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of AHHA. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

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.

Keywords: allied health assistants, allied health leadership, allied health professionals, allied health workforce, Australia, governance frameworks, health care, workforce governance.

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