A student completes the clearances required before a mandatory placement

Five separate clearances from five separate issuers, none of which the university issues and none of which travels cleanly to the next host. The longest single requirement is a vaccination schedule that takes six months and is nobody's queue.

educationOne nursing, allied health, teaching or social work student before their first placement, and then before a placement at a second organisation draft compare across jurisdictions

210 days elapsed
longest dependent chain

8 discrete steps
across 3 bodies

0% waiting on availability
scheduling or queue, not assessment

101 days saved by concurrency
vs. 311 if run end-to-end

Where the time goes

Critical-path days only. Steps that run alongside others are real work but do not lengthen the process, so counting them here would overstate the prize.

third party		210d	Waiting on an external body outside the regulator's control.

The process, step by step

Applies when: A student must undertake a mandatory placement to complete an accredited qualification.

#	Step	Who	Why it waits	Clock	Typical	Basis
1	Immunisation course and serology evidence certification Hepatitis B is a multi-dose schedule followed by a serology test. It is the longest requirement and it cannot be expedited.	—	third party	—	210 estimate	—
2	Working with children clearance certification	State working with children check screening unit	assessment	—	42 estimate	—
3	National Police Check certification Typically required to be not more than three years old.	—	third party	—	10 published	—
4	NDIS Worker Screening Check certification Required for a growing number of placements. Students are treated as volunteers, so no fee applies.	NDIS Worker Screening Unit (NSW)	assessment	—	21 published	—
5	Provide First Aid certificate certification	—	scheduling	—	7 published	—
6	Host organisation requirements certification Orientation modules, mandatory training, and organisation-specific health requirements such as TB risk assessment and respirator fit-testing. after Working with children clearance, National Police Check, NDIS Worker Screening Check, Provide First Aid certificate 147d slack	Placement host organisation	third party	—	21 published	—
7	Placement commences registration after Immunisation course and serology evidence, Host organisation requirements	Placement host organisation	assessment	—	0 estimate	—
8	Placement at a second organisation, or in a second state application only if triggered Much of the stack again: a second host's modules, and in another state a second working with children check. Triggered when: The course requires placements at more than one host organisation, or a placement in another state or territory. after Placement commences	Placement host organisation	third party	—	42 estimate	—

on the critical path scheduling/queue = delay not caused by the assessment itself

Proposed changes

The Commonwealth pays the student, the state owns the ward, and nobody funds the supervisor threshold
The Commonwealth Prac Payment expands to ten allied health disciplines from 1 July 2027, reaching around 95,000 students a year. It addresses placement poverty. It does not create a single additional placement, and supervision is the binding constraint.
Five clearances from five issuers, and the induction done again at every host merge ~42d
A student needs immunisation evidence, a working with children check, a police check, an NDIS worker screening check, first aid, and each host's own modules. The university issues none of it, and the parts that do not travel are the parts a state health system controls.

Sources

Universities require students on clinical or fieldwork placement to demonstrate compliance with immunisations, police checks and a working with children check
A number of placements require a NDIS Worker Screening Check; students are treated as volunteers and no application fee applies
A National Police Check takes 5-10 business days; an NDIS Worker Screening Check takes 2-4 weeks
A National Police Certificate is typically required to be not more than three years old
Queensland Health: students must complete a TB risk assessment prior to placement; yearly fit-testing is required where a particulate filter respirator may be used
Students must complete a Provide First Aid course before attending clinical placements

Something wrong here?

This page is wrong in some way -- every page like it is. If you have run this process, the most useful thing you can do is tell us which step took longer than we say and why. Edit data/processes/au-placement-compliance.toml and open a pull request, or send us the correction.