Federal Assistant Minister for Health, Dr David Gillespie, has announced a national investment of $93M on the Rural Workforce Agency program. The investment is a part of the Federal Coalition Government’s health workforce reform agenda, which is redesigned to deliver better health outcomes for people living in regional, rural and remote Australia.

“Access to essential primary health care, quality of access, and future planning to build a sustainable workforce will be the key tasks for the workforce agencies,” Minister Gillespie said.

It is predicted that there will be an an oversupply of 7,000 doctors by 2030 so that the challenge now is the distribution of the health workforce. The national focus is now shifted to address the lack of doctors and allied health professionals in many parts of regional and remote Australia in order to meet community need and health workforce demands.

The redesigned programs will begin mid-year, following a targeted grants round. Minister Gillespie said that it will build and strengthen our health workforce and support ongoing quality improvements to ensure we connect medical and health professionals with the communities who need them.

Dr Ross Maxwell, Chair of Rural Health Workforce Australia said, “We are delighted to see the Government investing in a health workforce that meets the needs of rural and remote Australians. The agencies are ideally placed to deliver on this commitment, given their ongoing work in attracting, recruiting and supporting rural doctors, nurses and allied health professionals.”

Each Australian State and the Northern Territory is served by a Rural Workforce Agency. These are the NSW Rural Doctors Network, Rural Workforce Agency Victoria, Health Workforce Queensland, Rural Doctors Workforce Agency (SA), Rural Health West (WA), Health Recruitment PLUS Tasmania and the Northern Territory Primary Health Network.

More articles on My Health Career:

• Doctor shortages or oversupply? Conflicting headlines
• Addressing physiotherapy workforce shortages in rural and remote Australia
• Staffing levels – the answer for the aged care crisis?

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