Speech Pathology Australia - Allied Health Assistant Feature

Ethical issues WORKING TOGETHER

C hanges to funding models and increased in providing support to the work of a speech pathologist and for clients with communication and/or swallowing difficulties. Ethical issues when working as and with an AHA may arise when: An AHA is asked to work outside of their scope of practice An AHA is asked to carry out a task which is outside of their scope of practice for example to perform an assessment, make a clinical decision about a client’s goals or work independently with a client without regular contact from the supervising speech pathologist. An AHA does not have regular, timely and sufficient support from a speech and language pathologist A client’s quality and/or safety of care may be compromised if an AHA does not have access to regular, timely and sufficient contact with a speech and language pathologist to discuss and review the client’s intervention plan and progress towards goals. This may lead to an AHA having to make decisions without support, working outside of their scope of practice, or decisions regarding interventions provided being delayed, any of which can compromise the quality of service and care for clients. An AHA is asked to seek advice regarding a client’s care from multiple speech and language pathologists It is best-practice for the same speech pathologist to oversee and manage a client’s care. Ethical issues could arise if AHA’s are working independently demand and access to services have resulted in an increase in allied health assistant (AHA) positions and recruitment. AHA’s play a vital role

and seeking clinical advice and supervision from multiple speech pathologists who may have differing approaches, knowledge of the client and styles of working. The overall clinical management and responsibility lies with the speech pathologist and not with the AHA. A speech pathologist does not have a working relationship with a designated AHA It is best-practice for a speech pathologist to work with an AHA they have met and have a working relationship with. Each AHA will have a different set of knowledge and skills they bring to the role, will need differing amounts of support and be able to undertake different tasks. It is important that a speech pathologist is able to meet with the AHA on a regular basis so that they can make informed decisions on what tasks are appropriate for the AHA to carry out and they are aware of what support needs to be provided to the AHA within this role. A speech pathologist is requested to take on the supervision of a full time working AHA however a limited amount of time is allocated to provide this support It is best-practice for a speech pathologist to have regular meetings with an AHA to discuss client’s progress, care and clinical decision making. The amount of time required to provide appropriate supervision is dependent on a number of factors, such as; how many clients the AHA is able to work with, the complexity of the programs and the individual needs of the clients and AHA. It is important to remember that additional responsibilities sit alongside these discussions and it is important to have time for these in the working week. This may include; writing or countersigning clinical records for sessions provided by the AHA, having time to re-assess and/

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June 2021 | Speak Out