Page 170 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 8 December 2004
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first draft of this plan will be circulated for comment early next year and will ultimately cover the period until 2008.
This first work force plan will provide a comprehensive outline of the current ACT Health work force and will forecast future work force needs based on trends and strategic information. An aim will be to provide strategies to minimise the anticipated impact of social, technological and demographic changes such as a slowly growing but ageing population and ageing work force and what this means for service delivery in health.
A further priority related to work force is education. A priority and goal for the government’s work force strategy is to better align ACT Health with the tertiary sector. Almost all health profession education and training relies on the public health system for clinical training and experience. However, health service providers currently have little or no influence on the decisions made in the education and training sector, which directly impact on the future availability of the health work force. There are a number of projects related to this issue that the government is now implementing to address it. They include:
• first of all, developing an allied health assistants program in the ACT;
• supporting the development of new postgraduate health professional courses at the University of Canberra through a $10 million grant to that institution;
• creating joint appointments between the health and tertiary sector; and
• developing new health professional courses that will also allow the ACT to increase the number of health professions grown within the ACT.
In addition, the ACT has committed $13 million for the development of medical school facilities on the Canberra Hospital campus. These facilities are scheduled to open for the 2006 university year. Unlike the Liberal Party, we did not just talk about it; we did it; and we funded the medical school to make it a reality.
The ACT is also assisting with the salaries and associated costs of the conjoint staff appointed to the medical school. Funding of half a million dollars was provided in 2002-03 and $3.5 million has been provided in 2004-05 and for each year after that.
The government is also focusing on work force redesign; it is a priority for ACT Health. The government has completed legislative changes to support the role of nurse practitioners and will now focus on exploring new job roles to support health professionals into the future.
Allied health assistants are another initiative which we will be exploring to assist the currently overstretched allied health professionals and to help deal with the anticipated work force shortages to come. There will not be enough allied health professionals to deal with the expanding population, so these staff will remove the menial tasks from the professionals, allowing them to perform the more complex procedures and treatments. The allied health assistants are seen as a complement to rather than a replacement for allied health professionals.
Currently there is no established formal training scheme for assistants in the ACT, so ACT Health, in conjunction with Disability ACT, has undertaken a study to determine the need for such a course. The project determined that the ACT did need this type of course and that it should be offered at a certificate IV level. Discussions are now under
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