Evidence-Based Brief: Addressing Nursing Shortage in Australia

This report provides an evidence-based brief on the nursing shortage in Australia, a significant issue within the country's healthcare system. It examines the context of the shortage, highlighting the growing demand for nurses due to an aging population and increasing chronic illnesses, alongside challenges in retaining and attracting healthcare professionals. The report delves into the background of the issue, exploring the intricate mix of public and private healthcare, and the global nature of nursing shortages. It presents recommendations, including recruiting overseas nurses, addressing workplace issues to improve retention, and implementing policy changes. The report emphasizes the need for effective communication of these recommendations to the public and government agencies, utilizing various media channels to ensure widespread awareness and facilitate potential solutions.

Running Head: SHORTAGE OF NURSES
Shortage of Nurses
Student’s Name
University Affiliation
Date

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Shortage of Nursing in Australia
Issue statement on shortage of nurses in Australia healthcare system
Healthcare is considered as one of the Australia’s fastest growing as well as significant
industries. For the last decade, the social assistance and healthcare sectors that includes jobs such
as dentist, doctor, physiotherapist, nurse, aged care worker and child worker experienced the
country’s largest job growth. Moreover, healthcare sector employs over 1.6 million individuals
which is one in every nine Australian workers (Morris, A. (2016). However, the healthcare sector
has struggled to retain and attract workers because of the relatively rates of income as well as
inadequacy of secure employment opportunities. Moreover, healthcare professionals are in short
supply with a range of occupations appearing on the immigration skilled occupation list. It
should be noted that nurses are especially in high demand; Health Workforce Australia has
estimated that by 2025 there will be a shortage of approximately 100,000 nurses (Ryan,
Gwinner, Mallan & Livock, 2017). The shortage of nurses has an impact on numerous areas of
policy priority like aged care.
Background information
Even though healthcare system in Australia is greatly intricate and often inefficient, it is
still one of the best in the world. The healthcare system is a complicate mix of private and public
firms, tax subsidies and incentives and is funded largely by the commonwealth government,
nevertheless, managed by the states. Over the last decade, employment in healthcare system has
risen by 4% yearly relative to 1.6% across the rest of the country’s economy. The trend is
expected to be the same or even rise for the foreseeable future as the share of the country’s
population in the retirement increases further. The shortage of healthcare professionals like

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nurses is being faced globally. According to the international council of nurses, majority of
countries in the World Health Organization experiences misutilization, maldistribution and
shortage of nurses (Marć, Bartosiewicz, Burzyńska, Chmiel & Januszewicz, 2019). In the
country, difficulties in retaining and attracting skilled and experienced nurses are currently
taking place in both private and public sectors and it is projected that the situation will not
change in the coming future. Research has established that over 75% of the nurses in wards are
contemplating leaving their work.
Some healthcare facilities have reported that they face a 31% turnover of nurses yearly.
The report stated that the real nursing shortage is hidden as data of nurses is inadequate and
incomplete, nurses are forced to work past overtime and there has been enhanced use of agency
nurses as well as closure of hospital beds. Reports have shown that even though there are
shortages in the healthcare workforce, certain specialist areas such as critical care, mental health,
aged care and midwifery, experience acute shortages of healthcare workers (Marć, Bartosiewicz,
Burzyńska, Chmiel, & Januszewicz, 2019). Individuals have described the situation as a crisis
has and will continue to have negative impact on the safety and quality of health care offered to
the public. Many researchers and experts have stated that if the crisis cannot be reversed and
stopped, then it will have a damaging reduction in the community’s ability to get a range of
residential and hospital aged care services.
Discussions which came in the past about nurse workforce focused in nursing majorly
within the context of the acute hospital sector especially in both private and public hospitals
(Snavely, 2016). Nevertheless, as stated in the report of the committee on public hospital
funding, even though public healthcare facilities play a significant role in the provision of health
care, their services form large part of care continuum, a rising amount of which is offered outside

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of the healthcare facilities. As a result of this trend, a shift of the nursing staff into the care
provision in the community. There is a high demand of nurses especially with the increasing
ageing population. This sector is currently the next biggest employer of nurses. It should be
noted that nurses do play a vital role in the promotion of health as well as prevention of the basic
healthcare model. In the remote as well as rural areas of Australia, nurses form the foundation of
healthcare services and can, in more rural areas, offer the only health care to the locals in which
they work. However, with the increasing demand and significance of nurses in Australia, their
working environments and features of the people they care for, whether in the aged care sector,
acute hospital sector or in the local community, have changed especially in the past decade.
Nursing shortage in Australia is in a chronic condition. Increased turnover of staff
compels numerous healthcare facilities to advertise constantly for new nurses. For instance,
searches for jobs in nursing enhanced during 2018, up 13% relative with a year earlier, yet that is
not enough to solve the existing shortages in nurses. Nursing jobs attract comparatively few
clicks on the search engine, that can make it hard to find suitable and qualified candidates.
Recommendations to addressing shortages of nurses in Australia
Oversea nurses
The country has always lured numerous overseas nurses especially those from Britain.
Australian nurses migrate permanently to an oversea country and large number of nurses come to
the country on working holidays. Healthcare nurses have been recruited from overseas and this is
done basically on a personal health service or healthcare facility basis and with differing levels
of intensity (Gore & Rickards, 2017). The Australian government is restrained to become
directly responsible for campaigns of oversea recruitments. The Immigration and Multicultural

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Affairs Department (DIMA) stated that in 2001, about 590 nurses permanently went to Australia
while 4850 entered the country on a temporary basis (Short, Hawthorne, Sampford, Marcus &
Ransome, 2012). The government can do this by coming with policies to entice temporary nurses
to have a permanent work visas in the country. The enticement of travel has been viewed as a
positive for luring individuals to nursing as a career. Qualifications for nursing attained in
Australia are favorably viewed in overseas nations; that is, Australian nurses wishing to move
out of the country can easily get employment whilst on a temporary working holiday.
Workplace issues and retention
There have been several research studies on nurse’s retention as well as reasons why
nurses leave the profession. The research studies have highlighted working conditions as a basic
reason for healthcare nurses leaving. For instance, conditions of pay, especially in the aged care
sector, enhances workload resulting to burnout and stress, safety issues, insufficient and
inappropriate nursing knowledge mix, inadequacy in recognition of individual knowledge and
skills, lack of childcare and accommodation and occupation health hazards (Shacklock, Brunetto,
Teo & Farr, 2014). Data concerning the number of nurses leaving the healthcare workforce is
hard to get. Nevertheless, certain indication of the trends can be used by looking at the number of
people with qualification in nursing not employed as nurses. Evidence obtained in the New
South Wales in 2016 estimated that some 17000 registered nurses were not in the workforce. in
2010 in South Australia, 1847 registered nurses as well as 350 enrolled nurses were not in the
healthcare workforce. The estimates given above are indicative only (Shacklock, Brunetto, Teo
& Farr, 2014). It should be noted that a pool of qualified nurses which is not in the workforce is
hard to determine. Changes in the requirements for registration in some states like currency of
practice requirements as well as the increase in registration costs can influence some of the

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nurses not to maintain their registration when operating in occupation which are not related to
nursing. Nevertheless, it appears that there are vital number of skilled nurses not in the
workforce, that the Board of Victoria of Nurses resorted to underscore a significant problem, not
in true number of nurses, yet those who were willing to operate under present conditions.
Implementation of the recommendations
To attract to overseas nurses the government should sponsor policy and legislative changes that
can increase the opportunities for different employers in the healthcare industry to employ highly
experienced and skillful overseas nurses. The government bodies should continue to operate
closely with the Nursing Council to ensure that overseas nurses are given the same working
conditions as the Australian nurses. Since the processes of entering the country are intricate, such
processes be simplified. The visa restrictions in the country as well as the process of registration
should be streamlined. Most of the overseas nurses enter the country on the working Holiday
maker visa (Stankiewicz & O’Connor, 2014). Nevertheless, the working conditions for the
Holiday maker visa need that the working holiday should not be employed in the country by one
employer for more than 90 days without receiving the written permission from DIMIA.
Therefore, such policies should be abolished and favorable working conditions established.
It has been established that retention of nurses is vital in making sure that there are
sufficient numbers of nurses in the nursing workforce to meet the country’s demand of
healthcare currently and in the future. As indicated by National Review of Nursing Education in
Australia, the few proportions of workforce of nurses means that a lot will be needed to retain
and attract new members. Economic and political policies should be implemented by the
government bodies.

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Communication of the brief
These rafts of recommendations need to be communicated to the public and government
agencies; therefore, communication will be done through print media, mailing and conventional
media in the country. The recommendations will also be dome through the internet like social
media platforms which are used by numerous members of the Australians. Moreover, most
communications will be done through the local leaders who meet the people physically and on
daily basis. To improve sharing the information in the hospitals, the brief will be communicated
through nursing leaders and management of various hospital management.

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References
Gore, J., & Rickards, B. (2017). Profiling Australian school students’ interest in a nursing career:
insights for ensuring the future workforce. Australian Journal of Advanced
Nursing, 35(2), 12–22. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=aph&AN=126664779&site=ehost-live
Marć, M., Bartosiewicz, A., Burzyńska, J., Chmiel, Z., & Januszewicz, P. (2019). A nursing
shortage – a prospect of global and local policies. International Nursing Review, 66(1),
9–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/inr.12473
Morris, A. (2016). The Australian Dream: Housing Experiences of Older Australians. Clayton,
Vic: CSIRO PUBLISHING. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1353364&site=ehost-live
Ryan, M., Gwinner, K., Mallan, K., & Livock, C. (2017). Preparing work-ready nurses: reflexive
learning for diverse students in the Australian vocational education and training
sector. Studies in Continuing Education, 39(3), 268–285. Retrieved from
https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2017.1279136
Shacklock, K., Brunetto, Y., Teo, S., & Farr, W. R. (2014). The role of support antecedents in
nurses’ intentions to quit: the case of Australia. Journal of Advanced Nursing (John
Wiley & Sons, Inc.), 70(4), 811–822. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.12239
Short, S., Hawthorne, L., Sampford, C., Marcus, K., & Ransome, W. (2012). “Filipino nurses
down under”: Filipino nurses in Australia. Asia Pacific Journal of Health
Management, 7(1), 7–13. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
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Snavely, T. M. (2016). Data Watch. A Brief Economic Analysis of the Looming Nursing
Shortage In the United States. Nursing Economic$, 34(2), 98–100. Retrieved from
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
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Stankiewicz, G., & O’Connor, M. (2014). Overseas qualified nurses in Australia: reflecting on
the issue. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, 31(3), 32–38. Retrieved from
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
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