Mark Butterworth, Chief Allied Health Practitioner
I would like to take this opportunity to highlight the amazing work of our Clinical Assistants in helping to deliver great health outcomes to our care participants.
Clinical Assistants (CA) work across all areas of Metro North and are a diverse workforce of Allied Health support staff, assisting to provide safe and high-quality care to the care participants of Metro North Health. CA is a collective term referring to staff employed in the following roles – allied health assistants, dental assistants, diversional therapists, orthopaedic technicians, pharmacy assistants, orthopaedic technicians, recreation officers, medical imaging assistants and leisure therapy assistants.
Below is an update on the Clinical Assistant (CA) Workforce Profile Review Project that is currently underway.
The Statewide CA Workforce Profile Review Project has developed and distributed a process for the Hospital and Health Services (HHS) across the state to identify, review and make recommendations to HPDOCG of CA4 positions to be created through the conversion of CA positions, that meet certain criteria, including the local service need and models of care. The project aims to deliver on Clause 5.13 of the Health Practitioners and Dental Officers (Queensland Health) Certified Agreement (No. 4) 2022 (HPDO4) being “an expansion of the clinical assistant workforce profile including the CA4 classification level, based on HHS need and models of care. This expansion will occur by July 2024. The parties acknowledge that clinical assistants at the CA3 level perform routine duties for which they have been trained and assessed as competent to deliver and CA4 level are able to perform more complex duties for which they have been trained and are competent to deliver”. Please refer to the attached document for further information on the project and the broader process being undertaken.
As part of the next step of this project, relevant units within Metro North are currently completing the process that considers existing CA3 positions for potential CA4 conversion, not new positions above establishment. The review is based on the requirements of the CA3 role and opportunities for the role to convert to a CA4 role based on the organisational need and not the attributes of the individual employee currently occupying the role. It will consider the local models of care and CA workforce profile for Metro North as a whole, including the impacts on succession planning. The review involves completing a CA Workforce Profile review tool in collaboration with the Health Practitioner (HP) delegate for the CA positions in the unit and line manager, relevant CA employees and unions as per the HPDO4 consultation requirements. The unit reviews undertaken will be collated by the Metro North HR team and provided to HPDOCG for review by 30th April 2024.
Please contact your line manager if have any questions or concerns relating to this process.
Mark.