Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health Dr Anne Webster has welcomed a Federal Government Review into the Australian health workforce, which is in line with the findings of her Regional Health Workforce Summit held in Mildura in March this year.

Unleashing the Potential of our Health Workforce Review is one of the recommendations of the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce and will focus on how to assist health practitioners in working to the full scope of their skills and training.

“When I hosted the Regional Health Workforce Summit one of the key discussions was around scope of practice,” Dr Webster said.

“Particularly in regional areas there needs to be a focus on creating a strong workforce that is able to provide effective care to their full ability – and that includes across multiple disciplines.”

Dr Webster said the Albanese Labor Government had stretched the health workforce in the regions as soon as they formed Government by expanding the Distribution Priority Areas which resulted in a bleeding of International Medical Graduates to peri-urban centres.

“When Health Minister Mark Butler enacted that expansion the number of international doctors moving away from the regions increased by 57 per cent in just six months to the end of 2022,” Dr Webster said.

“This hurt our regional health workforce immediately, and this report would certainly be able to highlight this. I am calling for an immediate reversal of the DPA expansion to return the workforce to the regions.”

Earlier this year the National Rural Health Alliance commissioned a report that found each person in regional Australia is missing out on nearly $850 a year of healthcare access compared to their metropolitan cousins, which equates to a total annual rural health spending deficit of $6.5 billion.

“Regional people are disadvantaged in three ways: poorer social determinants of health, a lack of service availability, and higher costs of access and delivery, all resulting in poor health outcomes,” Dr Webster said.

“Supporting the health workforce to work to their full scope of practice, whether in the city or out in the regions, is one way to alleviate the outcomes of the shortages. I hope this review will uncover other ways to ensure that Australians have access to a strong and effective healthcare system no matter where they live.”