Position overview

Acute Allied Health Services (AAHS) Physiotherapy provides services to a diverse cohort of patients across acute inpatient and outpatient settings. This includes the delivery of evidence-based interventions for people with chronic and complex conditions, with a strategic focus on reducing preventable hospital presentations and supporting safe discharge and transition of care across the continuum.

AAHS Physiotherapy are establishing an additional Pulmonary Rehabilitation service as part of the Managing Chronic Disease – Hospital Avoidance for COPD initiative. This service aims to reduce preventable hospital utilisation through early, evidence-based intervention for people with chronic respiratory disease.

The HP4 Pulmonary Rehabilitation Physiotherapist is a newly created role responsible for the development, implementation, and evaluation of a new initiative to increase access for ACT residents to pulmonary rehabilitation programs. This program aims to improve functional capacity, self-management, and reduce admissions, readmissions, and length of stay. The service will prioritise timely access for high-risk patients, improving patient flow and reducing pressure on acute services while contributing to reduced outpatient waiting times.

The role provides advanced clinical care and strategic leadership in establishing a sustainable model of care, including multidisciplinary collaboration, integration with community services, and implementation of outcome measurement to demonstrate impact.

The position will also support workforce sustainability and service capacity through staff supervision, student integration, and contribution to data-driven evaluation, ensuring the initiative delivers measurable improvements in patient outcomes and system efficiency aligned with organisational priorities.

Key Responsibilities

Specific responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Provide advanced physiotherapy clinical reasoning and practice for patients with chronic respiratory conditions, including COPD, across pulmonary rehabilitation and relevant acute and outpatient settings.
2. Lead the development, implementation, and delivery of a new pulmonary rehabilitation service, ensuring evidence-based practice aligned with hospital avoidance and chronic disease management priorities and integration with already existing services.
3. Provide clinical leadership in cardiorespiratory physiotherapy through supervision, mentoring, teaching, and support of physiotherapy staff and students involved in pulmonary rehabilitation service delivery.
4. Work collaboratively with the Manager AAHS Physiotherapy, Senior Physiotherapy Leadership team, Universities, and multidisciplinary stakeholders to establish sustainable models of care and ensure effective, high-quality service provision.
5. Support the manager through active participation in leadership forums and accountability for designated portfolios, including pulmonary rehabilitation service development and evaluation.
6. Lead and contribute to service improvement, evaluation, and research activities, including collection and analysis of data to demonstrate impact on hospital utilisation (admissions, readmissions, and length of stay).
7. Contribute to education and training of staff to support best practice management of patients with chronic respiratory disease.
8. Actively participate in professional development and contribute to supervision and mentoring of less experienced staff to support workforce capability and sustainability within the Physiotherapy Department.
9. Support workforce development through effective utilisation of students within the pulmonary rehabilitation service model to enhance service capacity and future workforce pipelines.
10. Undertake other duties appropriate to this level of classification which contribute to the operation and continuous improvement of the organisation with potential weekend work as HP4 role.

Competencies

Specific competencies include but are not limited to the following:

• As a Practitioner, integrates all other competencies, applying knowledge, skills and professional values in the promotion of health and provision of culturally responsive, high quality and safe, client centred management.
• As a Communicator, form effective therapeutic relationships with clients that facilitate the gathering and sharing of essential information for effective health care and health promotion optimise management and outcomes.
• As a Collaborator, work effectively with health care and other professionals to provide safe, high-quality, client-centred management.
• As a Leader, engage with others to collaboratively in shared decision making for the operation and evolution of the service and in roles as individual care provider, educator and as a leader of the service.
• As a Health Advocate, support clients in navigating the health care system and to advocate with, and for, them to access appropriate resources in a timely manner.
• As a Scholar, demonstrate a commitment to maintaining and enhancing professional competency, achieved through engaging in clinical reflection, continuous learning, teaching others and sharing their knowledge and participating in research.
• As a Professional, demonstrate commitment to safety and quality in healthcare through ethical practice, high standards of professional behaviour, accountability, and management of their own physical and mental health.

Qualifications

Specific qualifications include, but are not limited to, the following.

Essential

• Tertiary Qualification in Physiotherapy.
• Registered or eligible for registration with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA).

Desirable

• Post graduate qualifications in education and training or relevant clinical field.
• Have an understanding of how the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) indicators align with this role.

Experience

Essential

• Minimum of 5 years clinical experience post entry level qualifications.
• Extensive experience in Pulmonary Rehabilitation and Cardiorespiratory Physiotherapy.

Desirable

• Previous experience as a clinical or student educator highly desirable.
• Experience in coordinating health promotion programs and service evaluation
• Experience or knowledge of the CHS Exceptional Care Framework, and all other related frameworks.

Prior to commencement

Appointment to this position is conditional on being granted and retaining appropriate clearances:

• Undergo a pre-employment National Police Check.
• Comply with Canberra Health Services Occupational Assessment, Screening and Vaccination policy.
• Comply with CHS credentialing and scope of clinical practice requirements for allied health professionals.

Important information

All employees are required to:

• Adhere to the Canberra Health Services Values and the ACT Public Service Code of Conduct.
• Act in accordance and comply with all relevant Safety and Quality policies and procedures.
• Comply with all relevant clinical and/or competency standards.
• Be available for weekend restricted on-call Physiotherapy HP4 roster.

CHS is leading the drive to digitally transform health service delivery in Australia through the implementation of a territory wide Digital Health Record. Computer literacy skills are required which are relevant to this role as you will be responsible for completing required documentation and becoming a proficient user of the Digital Health Record and/or other Information Technology systems; once proficient, you will need to remain current with changes, updates, and contingencies.

What you Require (Key Selection Criteria)

These are the key selection criteria for how you will be assessed in conjunction with your resumé and experience.

1. Extensive clinical experience delivering high-quality physiotherapy services for patients with chronic respiratory and complex medical conditions across acute and/or outpatient settings, with the ability to apply advanced clinical reasoning and integrate evidence-based practice, particularly in pulmonary rehabilitation and chronic disease management.
2. Demonstrated experience in clinical education, including effective supervision and mentoring of staff and student supervision, and delivery of targeted education and exercise programs in cardiorespiratory physiotherapy and pulmonary rehabilitation.
3. Highly developed interpersonal and communication skills, with the demonstrated ability to provide clinical leadership, supervise and mentor staff and students, and establish effective working relationships with multidisciplinary teams, service providers, and key stakeholders to support a new and evolving service.
4. Proven ability to lead and implement service development, quality improvement, and/or research activities, including contributing to the establishment and evaluation of new models of care and demonstrating outcomes aligned with organisational goals.
5. Demonstrated understanding and commitment to safety and quality standards, including work health and safety (WHS), patient-centred care, and positive consumer experience, with behaviours consistent with CHS values of reliable, progressive, respectful, and kind.

Work environment description

The following work environment description outlines the inherent requirements of the role and indicates how frequently each of these requirements would need to be performed. Please note that the ACT Public Service is committed to providing reasonable adjustments and ensuring all individuals have equal opportunities in the workplace.