Building and Sustaining Clinical Training
(Inaugural Meeting of the
WA Clinical Training Network)
31 August 2012
Burswood Convention Centre
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Prepared by: Tuna Blue Pty Ltd
Introduction
Approximately 100 members and stakeholders of the WA Clinical Training Network
attended an inaugural meeting on Friday, 31 August 2012 at the Burswood
Convention Centre.
The inaugural meeting included a range of stakeholders from various sectors including
education and training, health and community care providers, private hospitals and
aged care. These stakeholders 1 are involved in clinical training (at the undergraduate, post-graduate and vocational education and training levels) across the
health domain.
The aim of the meeting was to:

Explore the reasons behind seeking enhanced collaboration in WA’s approach
to building and sustaining clinical training;

Achieve consensus on the processes to achieve:

mapping of clinical placements and identifying gaps in clinical
placements in WA,

ongoing engagement with the diverse range of stakeholders,

increasing the quality and quantity of clinical placements.
This report provides the detail of the outcomes from the inaugural meeting. It is
complemented by a Short Summary Report.
1
See attachment for information on stakeholders
WA Clinical Training Network – Inaugural Meeting
Friday, 31 August 2012
Executive Summary
Page 1
Executive Summary
A pre-meeting survey was used to identify the following five issue groupings:

Communication within and across agencies;

Funding and resourcing of clinical placements;

Quality and quantity of clinical placements;

Supporting and developing clinical supervision and facilitation;

Central coordination of clinical placements.
Outcome One: Critical Issues
In order to explore the reasons behind seeking enhanced collaboration for clinical
training, participants worked in tables to identify critical issues within each issue
grouping.
Communication within and across agencies
The critical issues are:

Time investment required to build and maintain collaborations and do it well;

Defining outcomes and expectations with education providers;

Knowing who to contact and once found and built, the relationship changes;

Infrastructure and support needed to build placements in non-traditional
settings;

Accreditation for non-traditional settings, approaches and models;

Appropriate resourcing and clinical supervision (experience and time) of nontraditional models of placements.
Funding and resourcing clinical placements
The critical issues are:

Resourcing the costs of clinical supervision and facilitation;

Limited recognition of supervision as part of the work of Clinical Supervisors;

Lack of resourcing and support for Clinical Supervisors (as well as other jobs);

Limitations in placement administration and systems (e.g.: software placement
system);

Lack of accommodation for students and increased financial loss leaving jobs;

The need for payments for clinical placements by universities.
WA Clinical Training Network – Inaugural Meeting
Friday, 31 August 2012
Executive Summary
Page 2
Quality and quantity of clinical placements
The critical issues are:

Lack of collaboration between workforce demand for health professions and
the enrolment activity undertaken by education providers;

Lack of coordination to match the appropriate type of clinical experience to
meet the accreditation requirements for professions (insufficient placements in
specialised areas);

Lack of trained Clinical Facilitators (universities encouraged to provide multistudent placements but not provided with ideas and strategies of how to make
them work well);

Lack of recognition of the additional time and workload of clinical supervision;

With a whole of State network, will lose the benefits of local coordination.
Supporting and developing clinical supervision and facilitation
The critical issues are:

Acknowledgement of the role of Clinical Supervisors and Clinical Facilitators,
education providers and the training requirements of each role, including the
quality of clinical placement assessments;

Acknowledgment of clinical supervision requirements (adequate time and
funding);

Funding for more Clinical Facilitators across all professions;

Need for a standardised approach to training in clinical supervision and a
standardised approach to clinical placement hours for each profession (e.g.:
800 hours for Nursing);

Need for the creation of specialised Clinical Facilitator roles (core skills and
common Job Description Form);

Absence of centralised orientation processes for organisations.
Central coordination of clinical placements
The critical issues are:

Feasibility of central coordination (cost, time and public / private);

Supply and demand are not visible (difficulties with cancellation and re-filling
placements);

Consistency and equity of placements, arising from inequality from university
side and clinical side;

Funding of placements and Clinical Supervisors to allow adequate training of
Clinical Supervisors;

Limited diversity of placements and lack of support for placements in small
health organisations.
WA Clinical Training Network – Inaugural Meeting
Friday, 31 August 2012
Executive Summary
Page 3
Outcome Two: Principles of Engagement
The participants worked in groups to identify and prioritise the key recommendations
to improve the processes for:

Mapping of clinical placements and identifying gaps in clinical placements in
WA;


Ongoing engagement with the diverse range of stakeholders;
Increasing the quality and quantity of clinical placements.
Overall Recommendations
From all of the votes cast on the recommendations, the priority recommendations are:

Develop a centralised, transparent system of clinical placement
management across Western Australia:
67

The Clinical Training Network WA develops a standard clinical
placement agreement and management system across professions to
inform the design of a centralised, transparent system of clinical
placement management across Western Australia;
20

Recommend the creation of a central coordinating governing body with
representatives from public, NGO, private sectors, and educational
institutions that is inter-professional (includes vocational and
professional accrediting bodies). This body will enable sharing of
ideas and set standards on quality, number and supervision. The
governing body will prescribe minimal standards of training for
supervisors;
14

Establish a standardised MOU between all education providers and
health providers that includes:
14

contact people,

role,

performance issues,

dispute management,

insurance;

We recommend that the governance structure for clinical training and
clinical placements is not siloed in State Health.
8

Transparent reporting of clinical placement allocation across the area,
to improve equity of access for students;
6
(All universities to report to a central body, eg: Clinical Training
Network on clinical placement numbers and locations)

Develop a governance structure (body) for clinical training:

consisting of representation from:
•
•

5
health – all disciplines,
academia,
role may include:
•
•
•
standardising clinical training practice,
standardising facilitation practices,
facilitation education,
WA Clinical Training Network – Inaugural Meeting
Friday, 31 August 2012
Executive Summary
Page 4
•
•



clear and standardised student outcomes,
recognition of speciality area requirements.
Create a career pathway for Clinical Supervisors and Clinical
Facilitators, including formal training and support:
65

20
Create a career pathway that recognises knowledge and expertise of:

Clinical Placement Coordination (university based and site
based),

Clinical Supervisor (site based),

Clinical Facilitator (university);
(Develop duty statements, promote best practice,
e.g.: awards, lines of responsibilities, use of research – EBP)

WA Clinical Training Network to engage education providers and
professional bodies to identify and develop common competencies for
an inter-professional clinical supervision program by December 2013,
with implementation of findings by the end of 2014;
15

Recommend a formal training and support structure for Clinical
Supervisors that includes standardised guiding principles across the
health industry;
15

Clearly define the scope / role of staff providing supervision /
facilitation / mentorship in collaboration with universities / VET sector
and industry.
15
Coordination by Clinical Placement Coordinators in both the
education and health sites:
63

Provide ongoing, sustainable funding to employ Clinical Placement
Coordinators in agencies and funding to facilitate clinical education
placements to become part of core business;
24

A Working Party to develop a model which has funding for each
discipline to provide a dedicated Clinical Educator for clinical training
and development, by 2013;
21

The forum recommends that the WA Department of Health Workforce
Division proposes a strategy to share workforce data with education
providers, in order to determine optional student quota for each of the
health professions.
18
Develop a centralised database for clinical placements:
29

The forum recommends that WA Health drives and resources the
establishment of a real-time, centralised database for clinical
placement availability and demand across WA, by July 2013;
13

The Health Networks develop a database of training providers,
facilities, contacts and scope of training;
4

Establish a central system of clinical, education, health service
providers contact information shared across the State;
4

WA Clinical Training Network to collate and publish clinical placement
capacity, usage and demand by institution and providers by March
2013;
3
WA Clinical Training Network – Inaugural Meeting
Friday, 31 August 2012
Executive Summary
Page 5




3
Recommend the establishment of a government funded and run
department to set-up a central database for coordinating clinical
placements for students:

would require mapping,

web access,

for placements in government and private health sector;
Establish a centralised repository of available clinical places across
each discipline / provider and linked to the universities and VET
providers clinical placement requirements and requests.
2
Encompass the diversity of clinical training models across
professions to inform the design of an effective Clinical Training
Network:
25

We recommend that Communities of Interest advise the agenda of the
Clinical Training Network (across sector, inter-professional and
professional specific);
9

The forum recommends that Clinical Training Network WA investigates
and identifies the diversity of current clinical training models and
requirements;
8

The forum recommends that the Steering Committee invites Clinical
Networks to include the Clinical Training Agenda into Models of Care.
8
Develop standardised clinical assessment tools at the profession
level:
10

10
Develop standardised clinical assessment tools at the profession level,
not at the education provider level, ie: RN, EN, AHW, Physio (Physios
already have a national one, used Australia and New Zealand wide).
Plenary Discussion
In a panel session, the recommendations were explored in more detail by the
stakeholders.
Key points to emerge included:

The Clinical Training Network has a key role to facilitate a process to rally all of
the stakeholders;

Clinical Placement Coordinators are key enablers for effective clinical
placements;

The need to collaborate is driven by the growing gap between supply and
demand for clinical placements;

The breakthrough strategy is to incentivise collaboration, particularly around
the formation and work of Communities of Interest, on clinical placements;

Effective and standardised databases are a foundation for a better placement
management system.
WA Clinical Training Network – Inaugural Meeting
Friday, 31 August 2012
Executive Summary
Page 6
Other Actions
Stakeholders used the Memo to the Steering Group session as a way of checking that
all areas and issues had been covered during the preceeding sessions.
Communities of Interest
Participants demonstrated a willingness to sign up to Communities of Interest in the
following areas:






Mental Health;
Aboriginal Health;
Primary Care;
Country Health;
Aged and Community Care; and
Inter-Professional Learning.
Next Steps
Cath Stoddart, the Chair of the WA Clinical Training Network Steering Group
committed to the following steps:

A report on the work from today, back to the Steering Group;

A summary of outcomes to the participants;

Consolidation of the nominations for the various Communities of Interest;

Support for agreed Communities of Interest to get started;

Recommendations from the Forum Report to guide the structure and activities
of the Clinical Training Network into the future.
In closing comments, Cath thanked everyone for offering their time and energy and
noted that the meeting outcomes were consistent with initiatives from other States.
WA Clinical Training Network – Inaugural Meeting
Friday, 31 August 2012
Executive Summary
Page 7
Attachment
The following organisations provided representatives to attend the Inaugural Meeting:
 Aged and Community Services Western Australia
 Bega Garnbirringu Health Service
 Brightwater Care Group
 Central Institute of Technology
 Challenger Institute of Technology
 Child and Adolescent Health Service
 Combined Universities Centre for Rural Health (CUCRH)
 Curtin University
 Department of Health
 Edith Cowan University
 Fremantle Hospital
 Graylands Hospital
 Health Workforce Australia
 Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services Council Inc. (KAMSC)
 King Edward Memorial Hospital
 Mental Health Commission
 MercyCare
 Murdoch University
 North Metropolitan Health Service
 PathWest
 Perth North Metropolitan Medicare Local
 Royal Perth Hospital
 Silver Chain
 Sir Charles Gardiner Hospital
 South Metropolitan Health Service
 St John of God Hospital
 University of Notre Dame Australia
 Uniting Church Homes
 University of Western Australia
 Western Australia Country Health Services
 Western Australia GP Education & Training (WAGPET)
 Western Australia Networks of Alcohol and Other Drug Agencies (WANADA)
 West Coast Institute of Training
Invited stakeholders were requested to complete a pre-meeting online survey, which was then used to
identify issues for discussion at the Inaugural Meeting. The survey was completed by 61 respondents,
and they represented the following health professions:
Which profession do you represent?
Nursing
Physiotherapy
Speech Pathology
Medical
Social Work
Clinical Psychology
Medical Imaging
Occupational Therapy
Chiropractice
Midwifery
Pharmacy
Paramedicine
Exercise Physiology
Pathology
Other
Response (%)
32.8%
8.2%
8.2%
6.6%
4.9%
4.9%
4.9%
3.3%
1.6%
1.6%
1.6%
1.6%
1.6%
1.6%
16.4%
Response
count
20
5
5
4
3
3
3
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
10