Allied Health Professional Associations Forum

 News from AHPAF

September 2004

Allied Health Professional Associations' Forum Signs Memorandum of Understanding with Ministry of Health

AHPAF representatives, Gail Leach (Convenor), Carole Gibb and Glenn Barclay met with Dr Karen Poutasi (Director General of Health), Dr Colin Feek (Deputy Director General Clinical Services) and Gillian Grew (Manager, Health Services, Clinical Services Directorate) on 16 August 2004 to sign a joint Memorandum of Understanding.

The Memorandum of Understanding will strengthen the capacity for the Ministry of Health to incorporate an Allied Health perspective into health policy through a joint commitment to sharing relevant information and research to inform policy development.  AHPAF representatives will meet at least quarterly with the Ministry of Health to ensure early involvement in relevant projects.

At the meeting, AHPAF presented its definition of Allied Health (see next page) and recommended that it be adopted for use throughout the health sector as the New Zealand standard to replace the number of different definitions currently used.  The Ministry agreed to consider this recommendation.

Other AHPAF Activities

Representation

AHPAF have been represented at a number of health sector forums and a presentation on the role of health professional organizations was made at the conference on Practical lmplications of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance (HPCA) Act 2003.

There have been meetings with a number of organisations to identify areas where an allied health perspective is required including the Health Workforce Advisory Committee, District Health Boards New Zealand, Institute of Rural Health, New Zealand Institute of Economic Research and Standards New Zealand.  AHPAF now has a representative on Magnet New Zealand and is currently seeking representation on the Primary Health Care Strategy PHO Development Taskforce.  Through AHPAF facilitation, member associations were given the opportunity to be represented on a new Allied Health Sector Services Standard currently being developed by Standards New Zealand.

Monitoring

An important activity over the next three years will be monitoring the effects of the HPCA Act on the allied health workforce.  A significant number of allied health professionals work part-time and also exit their professions for varying periods of time for family reasons.  The additional costs and resources required to maintain competency requirements may prove to outweigh the relatively low monetary benefits of working part-time hours in their chosen profession.  AHPAF members are currently assessing the data available and data required to measure the impact on recruitment and retention of allied health professionals.

Growing

AHPAF is continuing to grow and currently represents 14 allied health professional associations the PSA, as the largest union representing allied health professionals.  AHPAF member associations currently represent more than 10,000 allied health professionals.

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AHPAF: the organisation to approach for an allied health perspective.

Contact: Gail Leach, AHPAF Convenor,  C/o