Victoria’s healthcare workers are the backbone of our healthcare system. We put our lives in their hands every day.
We thank them for their dedication to timely, safe and high-quality care – especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, which put intense strain on health services and healthcare workers.
This is the context for the Victorian health workforce strategy, which sets out our plan to bolster Victoria’s workforce capacity and capability.
It’s a plan to help us overcome some of the longer-lasting impacts of the pandemic, like planned surgery care delays. It also aims to modernise models of care, roles and tools for the future.
Each year, Victoria’s health system provides services to millions of Victorians. In 2022 alone:
- GPs delivered nearly 48 million services (including telehealth)
- public hospitals discharged more than 3.8 million patients and delivered over 160,000 elective surgeries
- Ambulance Victoria responded to over one million calls and dispatched ambulances to more than 385,000 code 1 ‘lights and sirens’ incidents.
The Victorian Government continues to provide the sustained investment in the services and people that make up our world-class health system.
We are delivering the largest health infrastructure pipeline in the state’s history, having invested over $15 billion to ensure Victorians have the facilities and services we need now, and into the future.
A skilled and engaged healthcare workforce underpins our health system. Since 2014, we have invested more than $54 billion in our healthcare system as well as the people we need to run it.
We have significantly increased the number of doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals to better manage the increasing pressures on our health system and deliver better outcomes for the Victorian community.
This includes more than $2.7 billion on training and developing our workforce through initiatives including free graduate nursing scholarships, a new GP grants program, investing in a new Paramedic Practitioner role, clinical placements, and recruitment of international trained workers.
But we know there is still more to do.
Our healthcare workers need the workplaces, systems, career pathways, training and capacity so they can do their best work.
This strategy acknowledges existing pressures and provides a roadmap for how we will support our workforce to deliver high-quality healthcare for all Victorians.
It also outlines how we will build the workforce capacity and capabilities we need to ensure a modern, sustainable and engaged healthcare workforce over the next 10 years.
It recognises the immense contribution our healthcare workers make each day, and it outlines initiatives to enable them to build long, successful and rewarding careers.
I thank all of Victoria’s healthcare workers for their contributions to our community.
I look forward to implementing the Victorian health workforce strategy and developing and supporting our healthcare workforce to deliver world-class healthcare for Victoria now and into the future.
The Hon. Mary-Anne Thomas, MP
Minister for Health
Minister for Health Infrastructure
Minister for Ambulance Services
Reviewed 11 February 2024