Lost opportunities with Australia's health workforce?

Abstract

Concerns have been raised about the capacity of the health workforce to meet increasing future health care demands. Strategies aimed at improving workforce supply, at least in Australia, are focused heavily on education (ie, increasing the number of training places in key health professions) and recruitment (ie, recruiting overseas-trained health care professionals). Data from the 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics census of population and housing indicate that while many Australians hold health professional qualifications, many are either not in the workforce or not employed within the health occupation they hold qualifications for. Some immediate solutions for increasing the health workforce are to attract qualified health professionals who are either not in the workforce or are working outside the health occupation back into their occupational role; to increase worker retention for those still working within the occupations they trained for; and to explore strategies for better retention of new graduates.