The main aim of this assignment is to compare and contrast the national health workforce plans or process of planning of two countries that are Australia and New Zealand. This report mainly provides the range of statistics related to the health workforce. The health workforce is the important concept in context of all the health system inputs. Each and every health worker plays the care and cure role, and also utilize the range of skills in the diversified settings, and some of these skills are overlapped. The most important business of the Australian health workforce is to provide effective, safe, and quality care that ensuring the improvement in the health and well-being of the community of the Australia.
On the other hand, New Zealand (NZ) also develop the health workforce plans, and role of the Health Workforce New Zealand (HWNZ) was framed in 2009 for the purpose of leading and planning the coordinate the planning and development in terms of the NZ health and disability workforce (NZMSA, 2014). HWNZ is the unit of business in the Ministry of health, and this unit possessed the independent board. Generally, there are number of similarities in the health workforce planning of the Australia and New Zealand, but some differences are also there which made the policy of NZ more efficient and this is the only reason because of which NZ is used as the comparing country.
Structure of this report includes the brief details about the plans conducted in Australia and New Zealand and also includes the comparison between the two. Lastly, summarized conclusion is stated for concluding this report.
During the period of 2005, the first ACT Health Workforce Plan (2005-2010) addresses number of issues, evidences, and strategies for the purpose of delivering the ACT Health workforce which is sustainable in nature (Health, 2009). Four objectives are stated by this plan and these objectives mainly focus on making the sustainable health workforce that reflects the agenda developed by national workforce which includes improvement in the data related to the workforce, improvement in the response given by the workforce by redesigning the workforce, connect the education and training with the needs of services, and ensuring the approach related to the coordination through the effective linkages. Useful framework was provided by this plan in lieu of the evidence-based approach for the ACT Health workforce planning. This planning mainly considers the clinical workforce of the public sector, as this includes the medical, nursing and midwifery and also the set of connected health professions (Mason, 2013).
Later, government develop new health workforce plan for the purpose of guiding the local health care in sustainable manner. This new plan already ensures the good work by summarizing the ACT Health Workforce Plan 2005-2010 and also the areas related to the HWA’s National Health Workforce Innovation and Reform Strategic Framework for Action 2011–2015, which have been use in the form of framework for developing this new plan for providing the alignment with the activities of the national workforce (ACT, 2017).
Health workforce Australia (HWA) is the authority of the commonwealth statutory body which is established in the year 2010 for the purpose of challenging the issues related to the providing a skilled, flexible and innovative health workforce which complied with the needs of the Australian workforce community. For the purpose of establishing the connection with the national agenda issues related to the ACT health workforce will be managed through the multifaceted approach and focus on the five important areas that are stated below:
The growth related to the population across the geographical areas in which service are provided by the ACT Health in the next five years, and this is combined with the planned expansion of the services and facilities. This results in the requirement of the workforces which are more clinical and professional in their work and ensure the distribution of the effective and efficient health services. The government of Australia implements the Health Infrastructure Program for enabling the ACT health to give the respond to this increasing demand of the health service in the longer term. This redesigning includes the renovation of the existing facilities and build new facilities, install the new technology for providing support to the services and a range of workforce actions which includes additional employees, and develop the new models related to the care and service delivery (Sawai & Shishtawy, 2015; AGI, 2012).
Health Workforce New Zealand is considered as the team within the Ministry of Health and this team is responsible for national co-ordination and leadership in context of the issues related to the workforce (Ministry of Health, 2015). This team gives the advice related to the workforce development and regulations collect the data and intelligence related to the workforce, and also invests in the health workforce training. Support is designed for the purpose of ensuring that right people governed and regulate the health system at the right place and with the right skills for giving safe care and best results for the population. HWNZ also make investments in the training and development of the health and disability workforce. Funds allocated by this team supports number of concerns and all these concerns are defined below:
Commitment is made by the HWNZ for developing an updated national health workforce strategic plan, and it is expected that this plan was published in the year of 2018. This plan was developed in the collaboration with all the parts of the sector and feedback taken from the consumers. Strategic plan of the workforce will the document that will also reflect the future decision making and investment and includes the agreed priorities that are reviewed and updated on annual basis. This plan mainly focuses on the development of the workforce in the identified areas of the issues such as mental health, primary care and midwifery and also focus on meeting the health needs of rural and Maori communities. Numbers of discussions have been held with the board of the HWNZ and taskforces, and feedback has been gathered from the referred group of the consumers (Ministry of Health, 2018).
Practical initiative is also taken by the HWNZ and this initiative is known as the Voluntary Bonding Scheme (VBS), for the purpose of encouraging the new qualified professionals to work in those communities and specialists that required them and it also ensure the retention of the necessary health professionals in the NZ. Those who are related to the schemes get the annual payments for the purpose of repaying their student loan or as an extra income. In 2009, this scheme was introduced by the HWNZ for encouraging the graduate doctors, midwives, and nurses ((Ministry of Health, 2015).
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) in connection with the national boards is held obligated for the national registration process for 14 health professions. Data related to this annual registration process in context of the data related to the workforce survey that is filled on voluntary basis at the time of registration results in the National Health Workforce Dataset (NHWDS). Data related to the NHWDS includes both demographic and employment information for registering the health professionals. Very few practitioners complete the survey related to the workforce on the forms instead of online method. This completed survey related to the paper provided by the AHPRA to the department for scanning, cleansing and merging the data related to the paper-based survey into the online registration and survey dataset (AIHW, 2013).
This agency is established in 2010 in terms of the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (NRAS). At the initial stage of the NRAS, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) was engaged as the data custodian of the NHWDS. Contract with the AIHW is expired on 30 June 2016 and custodian ship related to NHWDS is initiated on the 1st July 2016. Revised NHWDS is released by the department from 2013 onwards. Both the data related to the AIHW and the enhanced data from the department from 2013 onwards are also available on public domain on the Health workforce data tool. These revised NHWDS release somehow of the original versions of the AIHW because of the minor difference in the method of imputation.
Data related to the clinical placements were collected on the annual basis from 2009-2014, and the datasets include the detailed information on the clinical setting of the placements of each health discipline and also the geographic location of the placement. It must be noted that these datasets are not updated in the future (DOH, 2017). There are number of registrations in context of the medical professionals, nursing and midwifery’s etc. from 2013-2016, and details of all these registrations are stated below:
Another important aspect in this context are the workforce planning tool which is used for undertaking the undertake health workforce supply and also demand projections which are projected by each state and territory for identifying the potential gaps and oversupply in Australia’s health workforce at both national and local level. This tool was developed on original basis by the National Health Workforce Taskforce, and it is the part of the former Health Workforce Australia (DOH, 2017).
The medical workforce and taskforce conduct the surveys two times every year of the DHB resident medical officers (RMOs) and senior medical officers (SMOs) for the purpose of informing the workforce planning and funding. This survey is very important because DHB becomes accustomed for the purpose of providing necessary and relevant information. In the survey conducted in 2015, results reflect the large reduction in the data related to the postgraduate year 3 (PGY3) and postgraduate year 3+ (PGY3+) position, and the market reduce in the number of international medical graduates. This clearly shows more number of opportunities for movement through the medical pipeline for the citizens and permanent residents of the New Zealand’s. It must be noted that next level of the surveys includes the data capturing for the purpose of identifying the impact on SMOs of training RMOs (AHPRA, 2016).
It must be noted that, continuous work is done by the taskforce with the DHB’s to find the placements for all the eligible graduates in the medical field. This authority also gives the priority to the new medical graduates and who are also the citizens and permanent residents of the NZ or Australia also. In November 2015, almost 423 medical graduates as there is increase of 29 candidates from the November 2014 (HWNZ, 2016).
Another important factor in this section is the Community-based clinical attachments; these attachments are considered as the 13 week assignments prevocational trainees which must be completed by the candidates for compliance with the registration criteria of the Medical Council of New Zealand’s. The attachments related to this take place in the settings of the community which also includes urgent care services, hospices, community mental health services, and other community-based services and general practice. The main aim of this structure is to care the patients and manage their illness in such manner as it follows the instructions given by the patient’s family and community. Following is the population figure of Maori and figures of available workforce for them (Sewell, 2017):
In Australia the biggest issue faced by the health workforce is management of personnel, training, and immigration. All these issues impose adverse effect on the effectiveness of the health workforce plan.
In New Zealand, the biggest issue faced by the health workforce is quality care and treatment provided to the population and less interest of the capable individuals in this field.
Following are the 10 factors which are described in the WHO report 2016 in context of health workforce planning:
Education: Australia and New Zealand must focus on the education material and approach related to the Health workforce planning, and must ensure that student of the countries consider this area as their as their relevant career objective. In this context government can hire the committee which makes efforts to provide knowledge in this context to maximum people.
Incentives: it is the biggest motivation which helps the government in maintaining the imbalance of the human needs and for this purpose government can introduce different rewards for good and efficient work of employees.
Retention: the most difficult task, and for this purpose both the countries can introduce programs which provide benefits to the employees and also ensure that employees are getting adequate compensation for their work.
Skill mix: policies which help the government in improving the skill mix of the employees can be considered as the best tool for government in providing quality services and for this purpose government can focus on different areas such as technology, training, etc.
Labor markets: Government must frame the effective policies which address the issues related to labor and make efforts to resolve those issues because this is the only way through which this market can be developed such as working conditions, pays, etc.
Availability: availability of the services is the complex issue and this issue can be resolved by increasing the number of individuals in the workforce and appointment of these individuals at appropriate places.
Accessibility: there are number of people who are not able to access these health services and government can enhance the assess ability through the
Acceptability: acceptable health workforce can be developed by providing adequate training by the experts to these workforces (WHO, 2016).
Cross cutting actions: these are the policies which are developed for providing the adequate support to the actual strategies, and it is necessary for the government to ensure one back up plan in case original plan does not work.
Quality: this is the most important area on which government of both the countries should focus and quality of given services can be enhanced through effective training to the practitioners and by strict monitoring (WHO, 2016).
Conclusion:
After considering the above facts, it is clear that there are number of difference between the health workforce plans of Australia and New Zealand and there is also difference in the structure of these workforce and authorities which regulate these workforces. Health workforce Australia (HWA) is the authority of the commonwealth statutory body which is established in the year 2010 for the purpose of challenging the issues related to the providing a skilled, flexible and innovative health workforce which complied with the needs of the Australian workforce community. On the other hand, New Zealand (NZ) also develop the health workforce plans, and role of the Health Workforce New Zealand (HWNZ) was framed in 2009 for the purpose of leading and planning the coordinate the planning and development in terms of the NZ health and disability workforce. However, some similarities are also there such as both the plans focus on providing the efficient and effective health care services to the community and also focus on managing the workforce in best possible manner.
References:
ACT Health, (2017). Workforce Planning. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://health.act.gov.au/workforceplan#Workforce%20Plan.
ACT. Workforce 2013 act health plan 2013–2018. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://health.act.gov.au/sites/default/files/ACT%20Health%20Workforce%20Plan%202013-2018.pdf.
AGI, (2012). Health Workforce 2025 Doctors, Nurses and Midwives. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://submissions.education.gov.au/forms/archive/2015_16_sol/documents/Attachments/Australian%20Nursing%20and%20Midwifery%20Accreditation%20Council%20(ANMAC).pdf.
AHPRA, (2016). Comparison of international accreditation systems for registered health professions. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: file:///C:/Users/Manisha%20Bhatia_Absas/Downloads/AHPRA—Publication—Comparison-of-international-accreditation-systems-for-registered-health-professions.PDF.
AIHW, (2013). Allied health workforce 2012. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/workforce/allied-health-workforce-2012/contents/summary.
Sewell, J. (2017). Profiling the Maori health workforce. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://teraumatatini.com/file/751/download?token=Ju2Z0DE8.
DOH, (2016). Health Workforce Data. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://hwd.health.gov.au/summary.html#part-1.
DOH, (2017). Health Workforce Data. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/PHN-Health_Workforce_Data.
DOH, (2017). Health Workforce Data. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/health_workforce_data.
Health Workforce Australia: National Health Workforce Innovation and Reform Strategic Framework for Action 2011-2015.
Health, (2009). Legislative and Policy based reporting. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://health.act.gov.au/sites/default/files//Publications/ACT%20Health%20Annual%20Report%202009-10%20%28Section%20C%29.pdf.
HWNZ, (2016). Health Workforce New Zealand Annual Report to the Minister of Health. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/hwnz-annual-report-2015-2016-mar17.pdf.
Mason, J. (2013). Review of Australian Government Health Workforce Programs. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/D26858F4B68834EACA257BF0001A8DDC/$File/Review%20of%20Health%20Workforce%20programs.pdf.
Ministry of Health, (2015). About Health Workforce. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/health-workforce/about-health-workforce.
Ministry of Health, (2015). Health workforce. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/health-workforce.
Ministry of Health, (2015). Voluntary bonding Scheme. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/health-workforce/voluntary-bonding-scheme.
Ministry of Health, (2018). Health workforce strategic plan. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/health-workforce/health-workforce-strategic-plan.
NZMSA, (2014). Intro. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://www.nzmsa.org.nz/about-nzmsa/health-workfoce-new-zealand/.
Sawai, A. & Shishtawy, M. (2015). Health Workforce Planning. SQU Medical Journal, Volume 15(1), 27-33.
WHO, (2016). working for health and growth. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/250047/9789241511308-eng.pdf?sequence=1.
WHO, (2016). High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth. Retrieved on 6th June 2018 from: https://www.who.int/hrh/com-heeg/en.
Essay Writing Service Features
Our Experience
No matter how complex your assignment is, we can find the right professional for your specific task. Contact Essay is an essay writing company that hires only the smartest minds to help you with your projects. Our expertise allows us to provide students with high-quality academic writing, editing & proofreading services.
Free Features
Free revision policy
$10Free bibliography & reference
$8Free title page
$8Free formatting
$8How Our Essay Writing Service Works
First, you will need to complete an order form. It's not difficult but, in case there is anything you find not to be clear, you may always call us so that we can guide you through it. On the order form, you will need to include some basic information concerning your order: subject, topic, number of pages, etc. We also encourage our clients to upload any relevant information or sources that will help.
Complete the order form
Once we have all the information and instructions that we need, we select the most suitable writer for your assignment. While everything seems to be clear, the writer, who has complete knowledge of the subject, may need clarification from you. It is at that point that you would receive a call or email from us.
Writer’s assignment
As soon as the writer has finished, it will be delivered both to the website and to your email address so that you will not miss it. If your deadline is close at hand, we will place a call to you to make sure that you receive the paper on time.
Completing the order and download