Speech Pathology Australia - Allied Health Assistant Feature

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Katherine Shannon Speech Pathologist, Coordinator Rural and Remote Centre for Disability Studies NSW

K atherine Shannon is the Speech Pathologist Coordinator (Rural and Remote) at the Centre for Disability Studies, an affiliate of the University of Sydney and started with the centre to work on a disability sector scale up grant funded by the NSW Government “The AHAs were working across disciplines so they would get primarily occupational therapy and speech pathology referrals. At the peak of it, we had five, but a combination of COVID and the terms of the grant meant we had to terminate their contracts. It just wasn't financially viable. COVID threw a spanner in the works but when it was working it was humming." Katherine said working with variable NDIS plans was a challenge, “a client might have one change (to their NDIS plan) and you have to go back to the drawing board for a new plan and their therapy budget or the budget for their therapy assistant could be wiped. “You can have an allied health assistant working with a client in a regional community once a week, but then the client has a light touch plan review and loses the plan budget for therapy or the therapy assistant. You lose the continuity. “We were targeting communities where there weren’t allied health professionals, so speech pathologists and occupational therapists would go out to the communities once or twice a school term. The idea was that the therapist could provide the programing and the AHA ‘on the ground’ could assist them with implementation on a regular basis. “On reflection, when we wound up the program, we realised that the market probably wasn't ready for us. “I live, breathe and talk NDIS every day. But if you see a speech pathologist once or twice a school term you've got a lot to learn in terms of how you utilise your NDIS Plan. Many of these communities don’t have support coordinators locally or people that can help client’s link to services. Some clients are three hours away from their therapist and weren't ready for an AHA because they just wanted to see the speech pathologist. I think it was something new and different for them. “I suggest If you are going to use an AHA you have to be sure that the client’s expectations are met. “There's been a lot of commentary in recent years about AHAs being a cheaper version of a therapist, but I think we had some really good examples where regular access to an AHA, where they couldn't regularly see a therapist often because of distance, and were achieving good outcomes.

Katherine Shannon

“I think that clinicians can be more efficient when using an AHA. There are certainly parts of our client work that we could delegate to someone else. Such as program implementation or resource development. “I spent a fair bit of time before we recruited looking at all of the policies and procedures that would apply to us. We had a practice package that talked through all the policies and procedures that we had. We had a referral form but we were flexible in how we received the information from a delegating therapist To help with efficiency the information could be provided in a home program, over zoom or during a joint initial visit. Whatever best suit the delegating therapist and the client. ”We did have guidelines on monitoring. We also utilised resources from the WA Country Health Service which helped with ascertaining the risks and determining how frequently programs should be monitored. “I'd like to think that our AHAs were well supported. We never expected them to do something that they hadn't been trained in or that was outside their scope of practice “Our AHAs were often delivering joint speech and OT programs for a client, so they'd be working with a client that is seeing both disciplines and they’d do their session incorporating activities from both. “I found that in regional areas AHAs need to be billing for both their travel time and their travel costs, if they are travelling to see a client which is allowed under the NDIS. "But every workplace has different budgets and different costs that they need to consider. But it's these little things that people need to be thinking about when taking on an AHA.

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June 2021 | Speak Out