Allied Health

The Government will help tackle the workforce shortage with rural allied health training and support measures

Allied health fact sheet (PDF 46 KB)

How will these initiatives work?
What has the Australian Government done so far to tackle the health workforce shortage?

We need more health professionals, especially in rural and remote areas, to meet the demands of an ageing population and the changing burden of disease.

The Australian Government is taking action under its National Health and Hospitals Network.

The Government will help tackle the workforce shortage with rural allied health training and support measures that:

• provide an additional 100 scholarships a year for allied health students to gain clinical experience in rural areas; and
• fund allied health locums to stand in for allied health professionals in rural and remote areas, while they take leave to undertake training.

How will these initiatives work?

A $6.5 million expansion of the rural clinical placement scholarships for allied health will provide an additional 100 places a year for students to gain experience in rural areas.

If health professional students are provided with good quality training experience in rural areas, we know they are more likely to stay and work there when they complete their training.

A new $5.3 million locum scheme for allied health professionals will also be implemented, enabling 100 rural allied health professionals a year to take leave for personal or professional reasons, including attending continuing professional development training. This will increase retention in rural areas.

What has the Australian Government done so far to tackle the health workforce shortage?

Since 2007, the Government has:

• increased the number of vocational education and training places. Of the 771,000 places under the Government’s Productivity Places Program, 50,000 are in health
• provided scholarships to at least 140 allied health students to complete clinical placements in rural areas through a $2.5 million scholarship scheme
• consolidated existing nursing and allied health scholarship schemes to provide greater opportunities to better target scholarships
• worked to implement a national registration and accreditation scheme for health professionals from 1 July 2010. This will enable registered allied health professionals to work across jurisdictions, providing greater workforce mobility
• with states and territories, committed $1.6 billion to a National Workforce Partnership. This will increase clinical training capacity, including providing funding for allied health clinical placements, as well as establishing Health Workforce Australia to better plan and coordinate Australia’s health workforce.

The costs of the initiatives reflect the total new program costs to the Government.

Further information on the National Health and Hospitals Network is at www.yourhealth.gov.au back to top