Speak Out June 2020

Association news

Current government inquiries The two major advocacy projects underway prior to COVID-19 (Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability; and Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety), although having suspended public hearings due to the pandemic, continue to release issues papers requiring a response. The SPA advisors responsible for these portfolios continue to contribute expert input to ensure the perspective of the profession and their clients is considered. Of course, many other advocacy activities continue, notably the Australian Government’s Senate Select Committee into Autism, which many SPA members are generously providing assistance with SPA’s response to this major review. COVID-19 related activities A great deal of work has been undertaken on many fronts, but here is a summary of the main issues. Telehealth: An urgent focus was the potential to introduce telehealth due to the virus, so we quickly provided strong arguments to the various funders (e.g.., Medicare, DVA, private health funds and compensable bodies – further detail on the status of individual funders is available on the SPA COVID-19 Telepractice webpage) to support the need for, and efficacy of, telehealth practices for speech pathology. (Many thanks to Deb Theodoros for her valuable assistance at very short notice!) I am pleased that many of these funding bodies moved very quickly to introduce processes for telehealth. We are preparing to re- establish contact with the various funders before their temporary arrangements end, with a view to permanent acceptance of speech pathology services provided via telehealth post COVID-19. We are now collaborating with several other allied health professions and University of Melbourne on an evaluation framework to analyse the introduction of telehealth during this period. We also provided strong support to AHPA which led to the removal of the need to bulk bill for Medicare telehealth services. PPE: SPA advocated strongly and was successful in having speech pathology listed as one of the high priority professions for Advocacy during the pandemic

PPE from the National Medical Stockpile. This was due, in part, to the work undertaken to articulate the aerosol generating issue of speech pathology work, but also through the eventual acceptance of speech pathology as an essential service AHPRA-related deals: We have been contacted by a number of members disappointed that some businesses have, in response to COVID-19, been offering special deals for health professionals on the basis that individuals provide their AHPRA registration number. We have followed up with these companies to explain that most health professions, like speech pathology, are not part of the national registration scheme, but some, like speech pathology, do have processes in place (through NASRHP) to ensure the same protection of the public provided by AHPRA, and we have offered to facilitate the same verification process from the SPA database that AHPRA’s register allows. One business response to our offer noted that they agreed that their process was “not perfect” but declined to do anything further. (We have written back to Optus a second time but still awaiting a further response). We understand that it is frustrating to some of you that speech pathology is not regulated through AHPRA, but the Australian Government has articulated that there is no appetite to extend AHPRA to cover any further health professions at this time. These are just the major issues during this challenging time. A significant amount of advocacy and lobbying has been done by various members of the SPA team, and through our strong connection with and participation in Allied Health Professions Australia. Mark Smith Manager, Policy and Advocacy Speech Pathology Australia is aware that with government announcements regarding easing of COVID-19 restrictions many members will be returning to face-to-face work. The Association has developed a dedicated page with resources and information to support and guide members. Information on this page should also be read in conjunction with the Association’s Guidance for Service Delivery document. New member resources Returning to work page

Go to the return to work page

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June 2020 www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au

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