Nursing Workforce in Australia: Challenges and Recommendations

Running head: MASTER OF HEALTH SCIENCE
Nursing Workforce
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
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1MASTER OF HEALTH SCIENCE
Table of Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Question 1........................................................................................................................................3
Question 2........................................................................................................................................5
Question 3........................................................................................................................................7
Question 4........................................................................................................................................8
Question 5........................................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Reference.......................................................................................................................................10
Appendix........................................................................................................................................12

2MASTER OF HEALTH SCIENCE
Executive Summary
In Australia, in the year 2012, there were 273,404 RNs and about 60 thousand nurses were
enrolled and registered. Findings suggest that with respect to the health trends in population, and
the combined effect of very fewer retention rates and the ageing workforce has led to an increase
in the shortage of the nursing workforce. The shortfall of the nurses is both projected by the
Health Workforce Australia (HWA) and Australia’s Future Health Workforce – Nurses (AFHW
– Nurses). The findings from the nursing workforce profile say that the headcount is gradually
increasing along with the increasing trends in the FTE nurses. It has also been found that the
nurses working in the rural areas are resigning at a high rate in comparison to the nurses in the
metropolitan areas.

3MASTER OF HEALTH SCIENCE
Introduction
A motivated, skilled and knowledgeable workforce is the critical aspects of the providing
the healthcare to the population of any country. Health workforce is the personnel that provide
the healthcare services like the nurses, doctors, and the ones that work to provide support to the
health services like the ambulance drivers, hospitals managers and the skilled health workers.
The major hindrances in the smooth flow of the healthcare delivery are lack of the proper
workforce along with the inadequate facilities, medicines, consumables, equipment (Leach,
2013). The health system budget includes the 3 main vital demands like the consumables,
physical capital and human resources (WHO, 2018). This study is based on the completion of the
nursing workforce data of 2015 with respect to the data of 2012 and 2009; the other tasks involve
the environmental scan of the Australian nursing workforce; the geographic distribution of the
workforce and the comment on the recommendations of the nursing workforce sustainability
report.
Question 1
The updated workforce of the profile of the nursing workforce in Australia with respect
to the year 2009, 2012, 2015 are as follows:
Note: FTE means full-time equivalent for 38-hour week
Table 1a: characteristics of the workforce with respect to the registered nurses [source:
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018]
Workforce
characteristic
2009 2012 2015
Headcount 225,040 238,520 256,034