2034 outcomes
- Improve workforce supply and distribution for equitable service delivery to rural and regional locations.
- Increase clinical placements and supervision capacity in rural and regional locations by 20% for increased local talent pipelines.
- Develop innovative funding and employment models that enable increased service delivery to rural and regional locations.
Delivering high-quality health services across Victoria requires tailored approaches that recognise the unique workforce challenges and opportunities in rural and regional areas.
Recruitment and retention challenges in our regions include:
- personal lifestyle needs such as amenities, schooling and employment for family members
- remoteness and limited social or professional networks
- perceived lack of prestige and professional development opportunities.
After significant investment, many professions now have sufficient overall workforce supply, but there is an uneven distribution of healthcare workers across some locations and specialties.
Some rural and regional health services are currently augmenting their workforces through partnerships.
A survey conducted in June 2023 found that public metropolitan health services supplied more than 120 FTE doctors to public rural health services through partnership arrangements. This included 29 FTE surgeons, 11 FTE anaesthetists and 9 FTE paediatricians. Doctors can travel up to 550 kilometres to reach a rural location.
Our vision is for a rural and regional health workforce with local access to the necessary skills, training and support required to thrive in their communities.
We will increase the number of healthcare workers based in, or available to, rural and regional locations. We will also enhance local delivery of training and skills development, and support people to join and remain in rural and regional communities.
In the 2022 health workforce survey, 19% of respondents indicated they had worked in rural and regional Victoria, while 42% indicated they had considered it.
This suggests an opportunity to increase the uptake of rural and regional roles and address longer-term workforce shortages by removing barriers and improving incentives for people to live, stay, and work in rural and regional Victoria.
We need to better highlight the unique benefits of rural health careers.
Attracting and retaining skilled people
We need to encourage more people to establish or develop their health careers in rural and regional Victoria. This is integral to ensuring our health system provides the same level of access, care and quality for metropolitan, rural and regional residents.
The consultation identified longstanding issues in finding and retaining suitable staff for rural and regional health services. This has become particularly challenging in the competitive health employment market of recent years.
These issues affect roles ranging from administrative staff and practice managers through to allied health professionals and specialist clinicians.
Challenges are often intensified for smaller health services and private businesses (such as GP clinics), particularly in smaller towns.
To encourage professionals to take up roles in rural and regional areas, we know the workforce needs accessible and affordable amenities such as accommodation, transport, schooling and childcare.
Employment opportunities for family members are also important, as well as avenues to build early and sustained community connections outside work, such as through community groups.
Growing local pathways
Health services across Victoria are developing local solutions to growing their workforce.
This includes partnering with training providers to deliver qualifications, skills and opportunities in clinical and non-clinical roles across the health sector.
Approaches range from apprenticeships and traineeships for roles as diverse as enrolled nursing in aged care and administration in a major hospital.
Other strategies include building longer-term relationships with future clinicians through long-term casual employment during university holiday periods, helping to maintain connections and relationships.
These broad and creative approaches to building and sustaining their workforce are enabling people in rural and regional Victoria to learn locally, work locally, and stay embedded in their communities.
Supporting professional development and contemporary models of care
Healthcare workers highly value effective professional networks, particularly those with specialised skills.
People working in rural and regional healthcare – in both clinical and non-clinical roles – need to have local access to:
- routine training and education to develop and consolidate skills and knowledge
- effective professional supervision and mentoring
- clearly identified pathways for the referral and escalation of issues
- valuable and viable career development pathways
- opportunities to develop, refine and utilise specialised skills.
Many roles, such as rural generalist clinician, embrace the range and complexity of clinical practice needed in smaller communities. Improved understanding, recognition, and access to training for people working to develop and utilise a generalist scope of practice will ensure these types of roles can be more effective and widespread. Increasing flexibility will also be important in smaller communities or professional groups where the level of demand for specific skills or services can be split across multiple service streams or employers.
To encourage and support healthcare careers in rural and regional Victoria, we will focus on building local talent pipelines and professional development pathways. We will focus on building the supply while promoting new models of care and flexibility that better utilise existing workforces.
Telehealth has helped improve access for our rural community to specialist services.
Action areas
The following activities will be delivered in the short term, from 2024 to 2026.
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- Identify, share and expand successful models of local training and employment pathways.
- Enhance availability of rural and regional clinical placements and rotations.
- Improve availability of continuing professional development training.
- Improve capacity and capability to deliver specialised and advanced clinical training.
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- Partner across government to explore opportunities to improve accommodation availability.
- Review and refresh existing recruitment and retention incentive programs.
- Promote best practice community connection and integration programs for healthcare workers new to rural and regional areas.
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- Partner with the sector to pilot employment models that increase serviceability to rural and regional locations, such as single employer hub and spoke.
- Review opportunities to increase flexibility in funding models to improve service delivery and employment arrangements.
Medium-term reforms
- Establish and expand training programs that are accessible to residents of rural and regional areas.
- Create local pipelines of skilled clinical and non-clinical workers familiar with the unique healthcare needs of their communities.
- Work with the sector to identify best practice models of social and community connection for newly relocated healthcare workers and their families and share these models widely.
Long-term reforms
- Provide opportunities to develop specialised skills that are relevant to regions’ needs and build more sustainable workforce models.
- Drive new and innovative programs in areas such as professional development and accommodation that support the recruitment and retention of a skilled workforce.
- Create innovative funding models that support flexible employment arrangements across public, private, and community health services.
Reviewed 27 March 2024