Nursing Workforce in Australia: A Critical Overview

This report provides a critical overview of the nursing workforce in Australia, including the number of registered nurses, their geographical distribution, and recommendations for improving retention and productivity.

Running head: HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING INDIVIDUAL REPORT
HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING INDIVIDUAL REPORT
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1
HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING INDIVIDUAL REPORT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The objective of the research report is to discuss and delineate the nursing workforce in the
country of Australia. The number of registered nurses in Australia has witnessed a gap.
Nurses in Australia are employed in different sectors of the healthcare workforce. There is
also a discussion on the geographical distribution of the nurses in Australia. Finally, the
reports concludes with recommendations proposed by the Nursing Workforce Sustainability
Report 2014 and there is an analysis of whether those recommendations are suitable for the
present condition of nursing in Australia.

2
HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING INDIVIDUAL REPORT
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Nursing workforce in Australia (2009, 2012 and 2015)............................................................4
Critical overview of the changing characteristics of the nursing workforce.............................7
Environmental Scan of the Australian nursing workforce-PESTEL Analysis of the nursing
workforce in Australia................................................................................................................8
Geographic distribution of the nursing workforce.....................................................................9
Analysis of the recommendations of Nursing Workforce Sustainability Report (2014)...........9
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................11

3
HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING INDIVIDUAL REPORT
Introduction
The attrition rate of the nurses in the nursing workforce is glaringly high and
therefore, it becomes an imperative to study the nature of the nursing profession prevalent in
the country. The aim of this assignment is to provide a critical overview of the health
workforce in Australia has been quite high. In this context, the goal of the research report is
to document the plight of nursing workforce in Australia, critical overview of the changing
characteristics, conduct an environmental scan, geographical distribution of the nursing
workforce and
Nursing workforce in Australia (2009, 2012 and 2015)
Australia’s Future Health Workforce (AFHW) is responsible for outlining and
preparing medium to long-term national workforce planning projection. The aim of the
workforce projection is to recognize the potential gaps in the future supply and demand of the
workforce. This identification of shortcoming enables the government to improve them. In
2009, there was an increase in nurses by 6.2 per cent (Schofield, Page, Lyle & Walker, 2006).
There was an increase in the number of nurses which is 13.3. Nursing has also been found to
be a female dominated profession and around 90.4 per cent of the workforces are women.
The Nursing and Midwifery Labour Force Survey identified that there are 320,982 out of
which 260121 were registered nurses (RN) and 60,861 nurses were enrolled nurses (EN)
(Gaynor et al., 2007). On an average, the weekly hours of midwives and employed nurses
increased from 33. 0 hours in 2005 to 33.3 hours in 2009 (Department of Health | Nursing
Workforce Sustainability - Improving Nurse Retention and Productivity report, 2018). In the
year 2012, the number of Registered Nurses (RNS) were 273, 404 million and around 60, 000
Enrolled Nurses (ENs) (Creegan, Duffield & Forrester, 2003). Most nurses employed were
90.6 per cent as clinicians. 32. 6 per cent nurses were employed in the surgical areas, 17. 3

4
HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING INDIVIDUAL REPORT
per cent nurses were employed in the critical care unit and 10. 6 per cent of the nurses were
employed for the care of the aged (Bloom, Canning & Sevilla, 2001). Around 52, 273 nurses
were authorized as midwives. Out of which 2, 049 nurses directly entered as midwives. This
shows that there has been a robust investment on nursing in the Australian economy. The cost
of employing the nurses along with the cost of education is borne by the taxpayer. In 2015, it
was found that about 2 in 5 nurses and midwives were in the age group of 50 and beyond it
(39.0 per cent). The average age of these nurses was 44. 4 years. In 2015, 360, 008 nurses and
midwives were registered and 331, 015 nurses were recruited in nursing and midwifery.
Regarding the gender of the nurses it was found that out of 10, 9 nurses were employed as
midwives. Among them the per cent of women are 90.3 per cent. All the midwives were
women (98. 6 per cent). The average ages of the nurses in 2015 were 44.4 years (Francis &
Mills, 2011).
The actions on the nursing system harps on the key principles of leadership that
emphasizes on building the workplace capacity, retention that emphasizes on the preparation
of the early career and workplace support, and productivity that would foster innovation in
the workplace.

5
HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING INDIVIDUAL REPORT
Image- Nursing workforce in Australia in 2009
Source- (Crettenden et al., 2018)
Image- Nursing workforce in Australia in 2012
Source- (healthtimes, 2018)

6
HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING INDIVIDUAL REPORT
Image- Australia’s Future Health Workforce – Nurses Detailed report, August 2014
Source- (McNamara, 2018)
Critical overview of the changing characteristics of the nursing workforce
The supply and demand of the year, 2030 reveals that there is both surplus and
the paucity of the nurses in the RN workforce in 2030. There have been noted differences in
the 2030 supply and demand. There has been a shortage of 44, 500 FTEs. There is a growing
demand of the nurses in Australia due to the increase in the ageing population. Although
there has been a considerable increase in the advertisement of nursing vacancies, the
corresponding filling the gap has been less. There has been a decrease of 90 per cent in 2016
to 80 per cent in 2017. There has been an increase in the ratio of suitable vacancy from 3.2
per cent to 4.2 per cent (Crettenden et al., 2017). There has been no change in the number of

7
HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING INDIVIDUAL REPORT
enrolled nurses (EN) in Australia. For the past three years, regional employers have found it
difficult to recruit midwives as contrast to the employers in the metropolitan cities. Since the
year 2010, it was recorded that the fill rate for the nurses is between 80 and 90 per cent.
There has been a decrease in the average vacancy from 14. 6 per cent in the year 2016 to 13.1
per cent in 2017. There has been an increase in the vacancy from 3.2 per cent to 4.2 per cent
(Preston, 2009).
Environmental Scan of the Australian nursing workforce-PESTEL
Analysis of the nursing workforce in Australia
It was found that the nurses use a robust stock and flow structure to make
predictions about the future supply of the workforce. The workforce of the nurses was broken
down into gender cohorts and age. There are variety of flow rates that are applied to each
cohort. This model incorporates the variety of flow rates through progressive ageing at the
workforce through the medium of iteration of the stock and flow process. To assess the
demand of the workforce, the utilization approach is used. There is an expected change in the
in the size of the population and the composition is taken into account for the projection
period. Australia provides a favourable condition for the nurses from overseas who wish to
work in Australia. The characteristics of different nursing sectors play an important role in
shaping the workforce structure and render the workforce projection (Parker, Walker &
Hegarty, 2010). Some of these nursing sectors are aged care, acute care, critical care,
emergency, and nurses in the mental health sector. Acute nurses cater to patients suffering
from infection, metabolic disorders and other degenerative issues (Health Workforce
Australia, 2014). Nurses employed in the acute sector mainly performed the clinical task. The
task of the aged care nurses is to cater to the elderly population. The mental health sector-
nursing workforce is found to be part of the largest undersupply among all the sectors. Nurses

8
HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING INDIVIDUAL REPORT
in the critical care and emergency unit have 96 per cent registered nurses. It is found that
nursing undersupply has reached to 38, 000 in 2030 (Thomas, Chaperon & Federation, 2013)
This can be attributed to low number of entrants in the profession and high exit rates.
Geographic distribution of the nursing workforce
The number of registered nurses in Australia is in a sorry state. The number of
registered workforce in Australia comprising of the female population is 33 per cent.43 per
cent of the nurses are in the remote indigenous communities. There has been a considerable
decrease in the number of registered nurses with the qualification of midwifery is 55 per cent.
The number of child nurses are 39 per cent in remote Australia (Lenthall et al., 2011). The
nursing system in Australia has witnessed a preference for the private sector.
Analysis of the recommendations of Nursing Workforce Sustainability
Report (2014)
It was found that highest proportion of nurses leave the nursing workforce in the
formative stage of their career or after the age of 60. The healthcare workforce comprises of
multi-disciplinary workforce and the productivity of the team of healthcare professionals are
interdependent. The high attrition rate among the nurses is situated in the broader context of
the uncertainty in the global economic scenario. The recommendation proposed by the
Nursing Workforce Sustainability is that Australia needs to strengthen their training capacity
and ensure promising employment opportunities for the newly graduated nurses. Creating a
sustainable leadership plan will be important in driving change in the retention and
productivity rate of the nurses. They should be provided with appropriate education and
socialized in robust nursing culture. Information and good quality evidence will usher in
positive change. At least some selected nurses should be equipped with key skills that would

9
HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING INDIVIDUAL REPORT
be helpful for their future. A compatible workplace environment should be provided so that
the skills and the roles can be performed with alacrity. Innovation needs to be intensified
through expansion of employment opportunities. All these recommendations are equally
suitable for the present context of nursing workforce in Australia.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that there is a growing demand for nurses in
Australia; however the supply of nurses is not in proportion with the demand. There is stark
scarcity of nurses in the remote areas. To respond to this issue, nurses should be provided
with high-quality education and training. They should also be provided with employment
opportunities and encouraged to develop leadership skills with the aim of retaining the nurses
and preventing their high attrition rate.
References
Bloom, D. E., Canning, D., & Sevilla, J. (2001). The effect of health on economic growth:
theory and evidence (No. w8587). National Bureau of Economic Research.

10
HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING INDIVIDUAL REPORT
Creegan, R., Duffield, C., & Forrester, K. (2003). Casualisation of the nursing workforce in
Australia: driving forces and implications. Australian Health Review, 26(1), 201-208.
Crettenden, I. F., McCarty, M. V., Fenech, B. J., Heywood, T., Taitz, M. C., & Tudman, S.
(2014). How evidence-based workforce planning in Australia is informing policy
development in the retention and distribution of the health workforce. Human
resources for health, 12(1), 7.
Department of Health | Nursing Workforce Sustainability - Improving Nurse Retention and
Productivity report. (2018). Health.gov.au. Retrieved 30 March 2018, from
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/nursing-workforce-
sustainability-improving-nurse-retention-and-productivity.
Francis, K. L., & Mills, J. E. (2011). Sustaining and growing the rural nursing and midwifery
workforce: Understanding the issues and isolating directions for the
future. Collegian, 18(2), 55-60.
Gaynor, L., Gallasch, T., Yorkston, E., Stewart, S., Bogossian, F., Fairweather, C., ... &
Anastasi, J. (2007). The future nursing workforce in Australia: baseline data for a
prospective study of the profile, attrition rates and graduate outcomes in a
contemporary cohort of undergraduates. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing,
The, 25(2), 11.
Health Workforce Australia (HWA). (2014). Nursing workforce sustainability: improving
nurse retention and productivity.
Lenthall, S., Wakerman, J., Opie, T., Dunn, S., MacLeod, M., Dollard, M., ... & Knight, S.
(2011). Nursing workforce in very remote Australia, characteristics and key
issues. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 19(1), 32-37.

11
HEALTH WORKFORCE PLANNING INDIVIDUAL REPORT
Parker, R., Walker, L., & Hegarty, K. (2010). Primary care nursing workforce in Australia: a
vision for the future. Australian Family Physician, 39(3), 159.
Preston, B. (2009). The Australian nurse and midwifery workforce: issues, developments and
the future. Collegian, 16(1), 25-34.
Schofield, D. J., Page, S. L., Lyle, D. M., & Walker, T. J. (2006). Ageing of the baby boomer
generation: how demographic change will impact on city and rural GP and nursing
workforce. Rural and Remote Health, 6(4), 1-9.
Thomas, I., Chaperon, Y., & Federation, A. N. (2013). Submission to the health workforce
Australia consultation paper on nursing workforce retention and
productivity. Australian Nursing Federation.