Health Workforce Planning

Running head: HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING
Health workforce planning
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING
Executive summary
The paper looks at the rate of increase in international migration to meet health supply
and demand in Australia. With an increase in trend towards international health worker’s
migration, the report provides data on the number of clinical health professionals by category
who has qualified from overseas country in Australia. This data will give update on whether
there is a supply or oversupply issues in each category. The report will also examine current
Australian policy that facilitated migration of international medical staffs and its impact related
to benefit and challenges associated with the trend. The report will also give recommendation on
strategies needed by the Australian government to make immigration policy more sustainable
and beneficial for the health care system.

2HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING
Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Australia’s dependence on international health worker immigration to meet workforce supply:...3
Current Australian government policies on international health worker immigration:...................6
Historical reasons for the development:..........................................................................................7
Sustainability of the current policy:.................................................................................................8
Recommendations to the Australian government for reducing the negative effect of health
workers migration:...........................................................................................................................9
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................10

3HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING
Introduction:
According to the World Health Organization (2019) report, the migration of health
workforce from overseas is increasing and there is a significant rise in the proportion of
clinicians and nurses from overseas countries. As the international migration process is
continuously increasing due to mismatch between supply and economic demand of health
workers, WHO has proposed taking steps to manage the challenges associated with managing the
migration process. The Australian health care system is also dependent on migration of
expatriate health worker to Australia meet demand of the workforce. The main purpose of this
report is to review existing policies related to immigration in Australia that encourages entry of
international health worker in the Australian health care system and recommend any possible
changes to the Australian government so that all negative outcomes of migration of medical
professionals is reduced.
Australia’s dependence on international health worker immigration to meet workforce
supply:
The review of the statistics on health workforce in Australia reveals that there were
around 100, 000 medical practitioners in Australia in 2015. There is a continuous trend towards
increase in medical practitioner which is evident from the fact there were 393full time equivalent
(FTE) medical practitioners per 100, 000 population in 2015 compared to 374 FTE per 10, 000
population in 2012. The figure 1 below suggests a trend towards increase in FTE from 2005 to
2015. This suggests that Australia has managed to maintain a balance in relation to supply of
doctors currently. In relation to the proportion of nurses and midwives in Australia, more than 3,
60, 000 nurses and midwives were employed in Australia in 2015 (Australian Institute of Health