Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2020 (MA000027)

This article provides guidelines about when to use the different work types and tags that are included as part of the pre-built Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2010 package. For further information about the Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2010, refer to: Health Professionals and Support Services Award

Key Updates to Award

Last Updated: May 2023

Key_Updates

Installing and Configuring the Pre-Built Award Package

For details on how to install and configure this Pre-built Award Template, please review the detailed help article here.

While every effort is made to provide a high-quality service, YourPayroll does not accept responsibility for, guarantee or warrant the accuracy, completeness or up-to-date nature of the service. Before relying on the information, users should carefully evaluate its accuracy, currency, completeness and relevance for their purposes, and should obtain any appropriate professional advice relevant to their particular circumstances.

Coverage

The following list is an example of typical health professional roles which fall under this award:

• Acupuncturist
• Aromatherapist
• Art Therapist
• Audiologist
• Biomedical Engineer
• Biomedical Technologist
• Cardiac Technologist
• Child Psychotherapist
• Chiropractor
• Client Advisor/Rehabilitation Consultant
• Clinical Perfusionist
• Community Development Worker
• Counsellor
• Dental Therapist
• Dietician
• Diversional Therapist
• Exercise Physiologist
• Genetics Counsellor
• Health Information Manager
• Homeopathist
• Masseur,Remedial
• Medical Imaging Technologist (MIT) (Including:Medical Radiographer;Ultrasonographer;Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologist;Nuclear Medicine Technologist;and Radiation Therapist)
• Medical Laboratory Technician
• Medical Librarian
• Medical Photographer/Illustrator
• Medical Record Administrator
• Medical Technician/Renal Dialysis Technician
• Musculoskeletal Therapist
• Music Therapist
• Myotherapist
• Naturopathist
• Nuclear Medicine Technologist (NMT)
• Occupational Therapist
• Orthoptist
• Osteopath
• Pastoral Carer
• Pharmacist
• Physiotherapist
• Play Therapist
• Podiatrist
• Prosthetist/Orthotist
• Psychologist
• Radiation Therapy Technologist (RTT)
• Recreation Therapist
• Reflexologist
• Research Technologist
• Medical Scientist
• Social Worker
• Sonographer
• Speech Pathologist
• Welfare Worker
• Youth Worker

Work Types

Annual Leave taken

Choose this work type when annual leave was taken.

Personal/Carer's Leave taken

Choose this work type when personal / carers leave was taken.

Long Service Leave taken

Choose this work type when long service leave was taken.

TIL Leave taken

Choose this work type when time in lieu leave was taken. Note that any accrued TIL is worked automatically in the rule set with the use of an employee tag (see 'TIL' under tags).

RDO Leave taken

Choose this work type when a roster day off was taken.

Compassionate Leave taken

Choose this work type when compassionate leave was taken.

Community Service Leave taken

Choose this work type when community service leave was taken.

Leave without pay

Choose this work type when the employee has taken leave without pay.

Hours worked

Use this work type to represent ordinary hours, unless another work type is more specific.

Public holiday not worked

Choose this work type when the day was a public holiday but the employee has a day off (permanent employees only).

Heated artificially between 40 and 46 degrees

Use this work type where the employer has determined that the employee has had to work in temperatures of between 40 and 46 degrees celcius by artificial means. Note to be paid a heat allowance, the employee must have a tag selected named 'Employed by business prior to 8 August 1991'.

Heated artificially over 46 degrees

Use this work type where the employer has determined that the employee has had to work in temperatures of over 46 degrees celcius by artificial means. Note to be paid a heat allowance, the employee must have a tag selected named 'Employed by business prior to 8 August 1991'.

Nauseous work

Choose this work type if the employee is engaged in handling linen of a nauseous nature other than linen sealed in airtight containers and/or for work which is of an unusually dirty or offensive nature.

Performs interpreting duties

Choose this work type if the employee is not a full-time interpreter and has performed interpretation duties. Note that the allowance will be paid once per occasion so the employee will need to input a new timesheet entry for each occasion that interpretation duties are performed.

On-call

Choose this work type when the employee is required to be on-call for a 24 hour period.

Kilometres travelled

Use this work type when the employee is required and authorised to use their own motor vehicle for work purposes. 1 unit recorded is equivalent to 1 kilometre.

No Meal Break

Use this work type where an employee elects to forgo a meal break when working not more than six (6) hours.

Recall to work overtime

Use this work type where an employee is recalled to work overtime after leaving the employer’s premises.

Tags

The following tags are available for application to employees under the Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2010.

Provides own tools

Choose this tag where the employee is a chef or cook and is required to provide their own tools.

TIL*

Choose this tag if the employee has agreed to receive time in lieu instead of overtime.

Cleaner in private medical practice

Choose this tag if the employee is primarily engaged to perform cleaning duties in a private medical practice.

Employed by business prior to 8 August 1991

Choose this tag if the employee was employed by the employer prior to 8 August 1991. This tag works in conjunction with the work types dealing with hot conditions.

Works at private medical practice

Choose this tag if the employee works for a private medical practice. This will affect the span of hours which forms part of the employees ordinary hours.

Works at a dental practice

Choose this tag if the employee works for a dental practice. This will affect the span of hours which forms part of the employees ordinary hours.

Works at a pathology practice

Choose this tag if the employee works for a pathology practice. This will affect the span of hours which forms part of the employees ordinary hours.

Works at a 5.5 day medical imaging practice

Choose this tag if the employee works for a medical imaging practice which trades for 5 and a half days. This will affect the span of hours which forms part of the employees ordinary hours.

Works at a 7 day medical imaging practice

Choose this tag if the employee works for a medical imaging practice which trades for 7 days. This will affect the span of hours which forms part of the employees ordinary hours.

Works at a physiotherapy practice

Choose this tag if the employee works for a physiotherapy practice. This will affect the span of hours which forms part of the employees ordinary hours.

Shiftworker

Choose this tag if the employee is regularly rostered to work their hours outside the ordinary hours of work of a day worker. Shiftwork penalties will apply in these cases.

Laundry allowance

Apply this tag if the employees are required to launder their own uniform

Uniform allowance

Choose this tag if the employees need to purchase their own uniforms rather than being supplied free of cost by the employer.

 

*Time off instead of payment for overtime leave is accrued at the same rate as the number of overtime hours worked. EXAMPLE: an employee who worked two (2) overtime hours is entitled to two (2) hours’ time off. If time off for overtime is not taken and the time off is to be paid out, it must be paid at the overtime rate applicable to the overtime when worked. This also applies when an employee is terminated and the time off is to be paid out. In order to be paid out correctly, the overtime rate will need to be recorded manually at the same time as the time in lieu accrual is processed. It is suggested that you record the overtime details in the “notes” section of the leave accrual line in the pay run.

If you are required to pay out the time off for overtime either before termination or during termination, you can run a Pay Run Audit Report for the pay runs for the employee when Time in Lieu was accrued to determine the applicable rates (which will detail your notes) and run an Employee Payment History Report to determine if any of the time off for overtime has been taken. You can then determine the correct balance based on the number of hours by taking the equivalent to the overtime payment that would have been made EXAMPLE: an employee who worked two (2) overtime hour at what would have been the rate of time and a half, is then entitled to three (3) hours of time off leave to be accrued. In our above example (the first accrual line of the screen shot) you would take 0.5 hours x 1.5 = 0.75 hours. Therefore, you will need to adjust the time in lieu balance by adding a further 0.25 hours (0.75 hours – 0.5 hours = 0.25 hours). 

Key Updates

July 2024

1st

We have updated the award to reflect the Fair Work Commission's National Minimum Wage increase detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2023-24 decision and also includes updates to expense-related allowances. You can find more information on the Determinations here and here.

These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after the 1st July 2024. Please install these updates after you have finalised your last pay run before the first full pay period beginning on or after the 1st July 2024.

We have also updated the Casual pay condition rule set to incorporate a rule for Paid Family Domestic Violence Leave and removed the Convert to Casual rule.

March 2024

25th

New Pay Rate templates for Casual Employees 

We have created a new set of Pay Rate Templates for Casual employees. 

For casual employees that have been set up to the correct Employment Agreement, applying the award update will automatically reassign these employees to the new Pay Rate Templates.

If any casual employees have been manually assigned to a Pay Rate Template, their Pay Rate Template will need to be manually reassigned to the new Casual Pay Rate Templates. 

NB: You can bulk update employee data via an Employee Import.

Update to Community Service Leave Taken pay category

We have also updated the linked pay category Community Service Leave to accrue leave and payment classification to "Leave - ancillary and defence leave".

August 2023

1st

From 1 August, all employees are entitled to 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave each year. The (Unpaid) Family and Domestic Violence Leave configuration settings under awards have been updated - the leave category is disabled from award leave allowance templates, and the work type is not enabled automatically for all employees. Please ensure that employees no longer use the unpaid leave category or work type.

July 2023

1st

We have updated the award to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2022-23 decision and also includes updates to expense-related allowances. You can find information on the Determinations here and here. These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after the 1st July 2023. Please install these updates after you have finalised your last pay run before the first full pay period beginning on or after the 1st July 2023.

May 2023

18th

We have updated the Health Professionals Employee Level 4 - Pay Point One - Part Time employment agreement to reflect the correct Health Professionals Employee Level 4 - Pay Point One pay rate template.

January 2023

28th December 2022

Unpaid Pandemic Leave has been disabled as this entitlement has now expired within this award. Additional information can be found on theFairwork website.

December 2022

We have updated the award to correct the rate under the Casual - Less than Ten Hour Break after Overtime Pay Category so it reflects 250% as per the award

July 20 2022

Unpaid Pandemic Leavehas have been enabled as this entitlement has now been reinserted within this award and is available for eligible employees from 15 July 2022 until 31 December 2022. Additional information can be found on the fair work website.

July 2022

The Award has been updated to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2021-22 decision. This also includes updates to expense-related allowances. Information on the Determinations can be found here and here. These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2022. Please install these updates AFTER you have finalised your last pay run prior to the first full pay period commencing on or after 1 July 2022.

Unpaid Pandemic Leave has been disabled as this entitlement has now expired within this award. Additional information can be found on the Fairwork website.

 

June 2022

The award has been updated to ensure the Employment Agreement Annualised Wage can be assigned to the employee pay run defaults page

 

9 May 2022

The award has been updated to reflect the changes made as part of Fair Work's Determination around Annualised Wage Arrangements. A new employment agreement for Annualised Wage employees has been created which can be assigned to an employee who is paid under the provisions of this clause. Further information on the employee setup can be found here. 

January 2022

The Unpaid Pandemic Leave pay category has been updated and counts as service for entitlements under awards and the National Employment Standards.

If any staff have used this category previously, please adjust their Annual, Personal and Long Service Leave balances for any period of unpaid pandemic leave previously taken.

November 2021

The Award has been updated in line with the ATO's requirements for STP Phase 2 reporting. The reporting of gross earnings are now being disaggregated into distinguishable categories. The Pay Category payment classifications have been updated in line with the ATO specification categories found here. For further information please see our STP support article.

September 2021

The award has been updated to ensure that overtime performed on a Public Holiday by a permanent employee is classified as overtime. A new pay category called Permanent - Public Holiday Overtime has been added. The pay condition rule set Permanent has been updated with a new rule and existing rules have been edited to facilitate the application of the new pay category.

July 1 2021

The Award has been updated to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of 2.5% detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2020-21 decision. This also includes updates to expense-related
allowances. Information on the Determinations can be found here and here.

These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2021. Please install these updates AFTER you have finalised your last pay run prior to the first full pay period commencing on or after 1 July 2021.

Updates have also been made to the Leave Category Family & Domestic Violence Leave, so that the balance is displayed in days instead of hours in line with the National Employment Standards.

Once the update is installed, all employee’s FDV leave balances will be displayed in days not hours. This will mean that an employee’s balance may now show as 38 days. In order to correct the balance please see How to Fix Family & Domestic Violence Leave Balance Data.

This update is to ensure that any new installs of this award conducted since 1 July are now captured with the SG increase from 9.5% to 10% for all pay categories. If you have installed this award between 1 July 2021 to 8 July 2021 for the first time, please ensure you select "NO" to preserve custom pay categories. If you were using this award prior to 1 July 2021, then you do not need to select "NO." Further information can be found in Incorrect SG rate used in pay runs article here.

February 2021

The pay conditions rule sets Permanent and Casual have been updated. A new rule has been created which will automate an unpaid meal break in line with clause 15.1(a). If you do not want to automate the unpaid meal breaks, then you can unlock the rules in the Manage Award screen and disable. Further, if the employee elects to forgo a meal break when they work not more than six (6) hours, the employee can select the work type No Meal Break, thereby, no automatic unpaid meal break will be taken.

December 2020

The award has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision. In this update the overtime rates for casuals have been amended as per the new pay guide which can be found here.

October 2020

The pay conditions rule set Casual has been updated to include clause 24.1(c)(ii) where overtime is to be paid when a casual employee works in excess of 38 hours per week or 76 hours in a fortnight, depending on the rule set period selected.

August 2020

The award has been updated to reflect the High Court's decision on the accrual of personal/carer's leave which overturns the decision made by the Full Federal Court of Australia, with personal/carer's leave being calculated on working days not hours. Information on the decision can be found here. As such, we have removed the Personal/Carer's (10 days) Leave Allowance Templates and updated associated Employment Agreements. Please note, this update will not remove any of the above from a business where the award was already installed prior to 25 August 2020. However, any new award installs from 25 August 2020 will not display personal/carer's (10 days) leave details.

For further information on migrating from daily personal/carers leave accruals to hourly please refer here.

August 2020

The award has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision around flexibility during coronavirus. The new schedule Y allows employees to take up to two (2) weeks paid pandemic leave. A new pay category (Paid Pandemic Leave Taken), leave category and work type (Paid Pandemic Leave) have been created. Also, the rule sets have been updated, where necessary, to include/exclude the work type and leave category to some pay conditions. 

Under this new schedule full time employees will need to be paid their base pay rate for ordinary hours. The rate for part time staff will be the higher of either their agreed ordinary hours of work or an average of their weekly ordinary hours for the previous 6 weeks

Casual employees who take paid pandemic leave need to be paid an amount based on an average of their weekly pay over the previous 6 weeks. If they’ve been employed for less than 6 weeks, the pay needs to be based on an average of their weekly pay for the time they’ve been employed. The pay rate for casual staff will need to be manually adjusted in each pay run for the period of leave.

July 2020

Overtime rates for casual employees have been amended to reflect changes made to the award effective 18 June 2020.

1 July 2020

The Award, as part of Group 1 Awards, has been updated to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of 1.75% detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2019-20 decision. This also includes updates to expense-related allowances. Information on the Determinations can be found here and here. 

These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2020. Please install these updates AFTER you have finalised your last pay run prior to the first full pay period commencing on or after 1 July 2020.

June 2020

The award has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the 4-yearly review of modern awards. The Tool Allowance on Pay Rate Templates and the Permanent and Casual Pay Condition Rule Sets has been changed to a weekly rate. 

April 2020

The award has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision around flexibility during coronavirus. The new schedule allows employees to take up to two (2) weeks unpaid pandemic leave. A new pay category (Unpaid Pandemic Leave Taken), leave category and work type (Unpaid Pandemic Leave) have been created. Also, the rule sets have been updated, where necessary, to include/exclude the work type and leave category to some pay conditions.  Further, the Leave Allowance Templates have been updated to ensure this new leave category is enabled and is now accessible for employees to take this leave when required.

Further, under this new schedule employees can take up to twice as much annual leave at a proportionally reduced rate if their employer agrees. The employee's pay rate and leave balance will need to be manually adjusted to half in each pay run for the period of leave.

February 2020

Due to recent changes to the interpretation of personal/carer's leave accrual under the National Employment Standards, updates have been made to the setup of the Award. Further information can be found here.

A new Leave Category called Personal/Carer's (10 days) Leave has been created. Also, new Leave Allowance Templates (LATs) have been created specific to 10 days accrual per year for each state and the LATs have been attached to the current Employment Agreements for selection options for an employee's LAT in their Employee Default Pay Run screen. Any rules impacted by Personal/Carer's Leave have also been updated with the new leave category. 

Instructions on converting the accruals to the 10 day method can be found here. 

July 2019

The pay condition rule sets for Permanent and Casual have been update to reflect amendments made by the Fair Work Ombudsman in relation to the Saturday and Sunday penalty rates paid to 7 day private medical imaging practices. 

Rule 24.3(b) has been deleted as the rates for working on Saturday and Sunday are now inline with all other employees. 

9 July 2019

The award has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision 4 year review of modern awards. The determination for the new clauses in the modern award can be found here.

The following clauses have been changed/updated/deleted in the Award.

24.2 Private medical, dental, pathology, physiotherapy, chiropractic and osteopathic practices

The ordinary hours of work for a day worker will be worked between 7.30 am and 9.00 pm Monday to Friday and between 8.00 am and 4.30 pm on Saturday.

The 24.2 rule for both the Permanent and Casual pay condition rule sets have been updated to include employees working in a Physiotherapy. There has been a change to the span of hours for Physiotherapy employees.

24.4 Physiotherapy practices

The 24.4 rule for both the Permanent and Casual pay condition rule sets has been deleted as this clause has been deleted from the Award.

30 June 2019

The Award has been updated to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of 3% from its Annual Wage Review 2018-19 decision. This also includes updates to expense-related allowances. Information on the Determinations can be found here and here.

These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2019. Please install these updates AFTER you have finalised your last pay run prior to the first full pay period commencing on or after 1 July 2019.

9 January 2019

The award has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision 4 year review of modern awards. The determination for the new clauses in the modern award can be found here.

The following clauses have been changed/updated in the Award:

26.1 For all ordinary hours worked between midnight Friday and midnight Sunday a full-time or part-time employee will be paid their ordinary hourly rate and an additional 50% loading.

Updates have been made to pay categories to reflect this new clause.

Permanent - Shiftwork - Saturday and Sunday is no longer in use
Permanent - Saturday - not shiftwork renamed to Permanent - Saturday
Permanent - Sunday - not shiftwork  renamed to Permanent - Sunday

The Permanent rule set has also been updated with the removal of the shiftwork Saturday and Sunday rules and combined with the non-shiftwork Saturday and Sunday rule.

29.1 Where the ordinary rostered hours of work of a shiftworker finish between 6.00 pm and 8.00 am or commence between 6.00 pm and 6.00 am, the employee will be paid an additional loading of 15% of their ordinary rate of pay.

29.2 A casual employee who works shift work as defined in clause 29.1 will be paid an additional loading of 40% of their ordinary rate of pay but will not be paid the casual loading of 25%.

29.3 The shift penalties prescribed in this clause will not apply to shift work performed by any employee on Saturday, Sunday or Public Holidays where the extra payment prescribed in clause 26 – Saturday and Sunday work and clause 32 – public holidays, apply.

Updates have been made to pay categories to reflect these new clauses.

Casual - Shiftwork - Saturday and Sunday is no longer in use
Casual - Saturday - not shiftwork renamed to Casual - Saturday
Casual - Sunday - not shiftwork  renamed to Casual - Sunday

The Permanent rule set has been updated to reflect the 15% loading of their ordinary rate of pay, adjusted to only include the hours worked from Monday to Friday.

The Casual rule set have been updated with the removal of the shiftwork Saturday and Sunday rules and combined with the non-shiftwork Saturday and Sunday rule.

These changes apply from the first full pay period on or after 9 January 2019. 

 December 2018

The setup of the Payroll Tax Exempt field in Payroll Settings>Pay Categories was replicating the PAYG Exempt field rather than creating a unique identity; when installed into the business settings. An audit has been carried out across the system and the issue has now been resolved with this update.

1 August 2018

The award has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision 4 year review of modern awards. The determination for the new clause in the modern award allowing employees to take unpaid leave to deal with family and domestic violence can be found here. Family and Domestic Violence leave applies from the first full pay period on or after 1 August 2018. Further information can be found at Fair Work.

Employees, including part-time and casual employees are entitled to 5 days unpaid family and domestic violence leave each year of their employment. The 5 days renews each 12 months of their employment but does not accumulate if the leave is not used.

A new leave category has been created - “Family and Domestic Violence Leave” and a new Work Type - “Family and Domestic Violence Leave taken”.  The Leave Allowance Templates and any impacted rule conditions have also been updated.

July 2018

Pay Rate Template - update rounding $0.01 of casual ordinary hours

28 June 2018

The Award has been updated to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s national minimum wage increase of 3.5% from its Annual Wage Review 2017-18 decision. This also includes updates to expense-related allowances.

These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2018. Please install these updates AFTER you have finalised your last pay run prior to the first full pay period commencing on or after 1 July 2018.

Additionally, the following changes have been made as part of this update:

1. New laundry allowance pay categories and rule conditions were created to reflect the ATO threshold maximum limits for claiming of laundry (not dry cleaning) for deductible clothing under the Award. Further information can be found in the “Cleaning of Work Clothing” section of this ATO article.
2. The Payment Summary Classification settings for Allowance based pay categories have been updated as per STP requirements.

 

We have created a new rule - 28.1(d) Apply Overtime - Over Advanced Standard Hours - Part-Time.  This rule reflects the following provisions of clause 28.1(d):

• the hours worked each day;
• which days of the week the employee will work;
• the actual starting and finishing times of each day.

Previously we could only assess the number of hours worked per week for overtime purposes.  Now however, we can assess the Advanced Standard Work Hours as set up within the employee's Pay Run Defaults screen.

For example, if an employee's Advanced Standard Work Hours were as follows:

The rule will assess hours as follows:

1. Any time worked on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday will be deemed overtime;
2. Any time worked before the start times on Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Sunday will be deemed overtime; and
3. Any time worked after the end times on Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Sunday will be deemed overtime.

N.B:

(a) This rule only works where Advanced Standard Work Hours have been set up using start and finish times, NOT hours only;

(b) If no Advanced Standard Work Hours have been set up for a part time employee, then all hours will be deemed overtime.

 

Please note it is paramount that the employee tags are set for each employee. Many of these tags will apply to all employees depending on the type of health practice they are employed by and subsequently affect the interpretation of what is considered to be overtime by the pay condition rule sets.