This article is an element of The Conversation’s series on Labor’s peak. Read the remaining of the articles on this series here.
The biggest challenge facing Australia is health – a difficulty that’s prone to be with us for the following decade.
Healthcare employee shortages limit access to care, increase wait times and reduce patient safety. They even can increase the variety of preventable deaths.
But we do not need what’s coming Jobs and Skills Summit to unravel this problem. The low-hanging fruit can now be picked.
We have to expand the scope of practice of some healthcare employees, engage in higher workforce planning, and reform how we use existing and recent resources.
Healthcare employees burned out and left
Burned out healthcare employees leaving the labor market is the predominant growth factor job vacancies throughout Australia.
While this is essentially resulting from the unprecedented nature of the Covid virus, Australia has struggled to staff its healthcare system for years. The labor shortage is especially acute in rural and distant regions.
The natural response is to throw money at the issue, however the Australian government has little spare money. The budget deficit is anticipated to be over 800 billion Australian dollars until 2025–26. State governments are also scuffling with money shortages.
Greater immigration of expert medical examiners can also have limited success. Australia will compete with countries equivalent to New Zealand, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, which wish to fill their very own health workforce deficiencies.
Health care employees could play more roles
Registration of healthcare professionals with standards and protocols is important to making sure secure and effective care. However, it also prevents healthcare employees from taking over recent roles often performed by others.
The possibility of expanding the role of health care employees was discussed over 20 years. There has been some progress. Pharmacists at the moment are administering some vaccines, which has traditionally been the domain of primary care physicians and nurses.
Victor Joly/Shutterstock
Broader scope of practice for some healthcare professionals may increase people’s access to health care, provide medical examiners with greater job satisfaction and result in simpler health care. It could also help the healthcare system respond higher and faster to future pandemics or large-scale reforms.
Overall, peak bodies and specialist universities were effective in protecting their premises. This could have resulted costlier care for society and the federal government since it keeps cheaper healthcare employees from providing healthcare.
We are currently facing a more significant issue. A broader scope of practice is required for some healthcare professionals to make sure safety current access to care. This stronger message will help the federal government overcome future turf wars.
New roles for paramedics, pharmacists, physiotherapists
Health care employees in other countries have gotten more flexible within the tasks they perform.
British National Health Service has “expanded roles”, equivalent to greater involvement of nurses within the management of chronic diseases. There are also “advanced roles” that require a master’s degree in advanced practice. One example is enabling qualified nurses to look after individuals with mental health problems locally under the supervision of a psychiatrist.
Australia can be beginning to think in another way. Ten years National strategy for medical staff released in 2021, goals to rebalance from subspecialty to a more generalist workforce to enhance access to care. We hope to create more GPs and specialists with additional skills equivalent to emergency care and other chosen specialist skills.
There are opportunities to expand the role of paramedics, particularly in rural and distant regions where there should not enough GPs and nurses.
Paramedics evolved from emergency care provision to chronic disease management, mental health and social care. Additional education for paramedics in understanding diagnostic tests, prescribing certain medications, and caring for wounds could increase patients’ access to health care.
Physiotherapists may be first point of contact for diseases of the musculoskeletal system. They could administer steroid injections and refer patients to orthopedic specialists.
Pharmacists could also play a greater role by providing medicines over-the-counter, quite than requiring a prescription from a GP.
Sexual health is one area. Giving women access to oral contraceptive pills with out a prescription could be an answer profitable with minimal risk. Viagra requires a prescription in Australia but is sold over-the-counter in UK.
How will we finance it?
Any healthcare workforce reform to handle shortages must maintain quality and safety and supply a patient experience that’s at the least pretty much as good as current practice.
It must even be accompanied by supportive financing models.
Nurses set a superb example. They were introduced in Australia in 1998 filling the shortage of doctors, enabling certified nurses with additional education to diagnose, perform procedures and prescribe drugs – inside strictly defined parameters.
Today, Very nurses work in public health, especially in emergency departments.
More and more nurses should not in private practice for a lot of reasons, including: limited access to Medicare numbers and pharmaceutical products.
With appropriate funding models, expanding the nurse’s role could significantly increase access to care and care reduce health care costs.
We need higher planning
Healthcare employee shortages are a widespread, multi-faceted and multi-jurisdictional problem. The pandemic has increased shortages, however the predominant cause is poor planning and limited government investment.
In some areas there may be an undersupply of specialists and in others there may be an oversupply of specialists. Redistribution health care workforce, from metropolitan regions to rural and distant regions, would fill some shortages.
Australia also needs one other independent agency like Health Workforce Australia. It was adopted to support labor market reform initiatives in 2009, but was abolished in 2014.
The recent agency’s roles should include independently identifying staffing needs across the health care system, helping to coordinate investments in education and training, and providing evidence for workforce expansion, retention, and reform.
What policy will we want?
The healthcare system also must be reformed to scale back waste and use precious resources more efficiently.
Digital health and other technological advances offer opportunities to enhance workplace productivity in addition to reorganize care models.
Reducing bureaucracy and higher allocating administrative tasks to non-clinical staff can even unlock more time for clinical care.