Australia faces major nurse shortage

Action rather than more research is needed to solve the unsustainable drain of
nurses from Australia's healthcare system, the authors of a new report say.
The Australian Health Workforce Institute (AHWI) and management company Kronos
Incorporated on Wednesday released the findings of a three-month research project
into nursing in Australia.
The research showed the average age of nurses had increased from 40 to 45, while the
percentage of registered nurses over the age of 55 rose from 11 to 20 per cent
between 1999 and 2005.
The trend was complicated by the fact that 14 per cent of the workforce retires
every five years, with 90,000 nurses expected to retire between now and 2020.
The research also found one in five nurses worked 45 hours or more a week, 49 per
cent of nurses were working part-time and only 70 per cent of qualified nurses were
actually working as nurses.
AHWI interim director Peter Brooks said researchers had identified a set of
consistent findings across all research and data in Australia from 1986 to 2007.
"In this project, we found that Australia has sufficient information, both at a
national and state level, on the key nursing workforce indices to progress to an
action phase," Professor Brooks said.
"Rather than further studies into the nursing workforce problems, the focus should
now be squarely placed on orchestrating solutions."
Prof Brooks said solutions needed to include a range of coordinated policies to
recruit and maintain the nursing workforce in order to meet Australia's needs.
The second part of the project will be a stakeholder workshop to develop a
sustainable solution, to be held early in 2009.
"It is not a simple matter to reconcile a growing demand for high quality health
services with financial constraints and a shrinking workforce," he said.
"New thinking on how to achieve improved productivity, innovation, workforce
management, stakeholder collaboration and resources will be required if Australia is
to successfully address Australia's predicted workforce issues."
The Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) said the report provided further evidence of
the inadequacies of national nursing workforce planning.
ANF national secretary Ged Kearney said nurses were being driven out of the
workforce by excessive workloads, inadequate staffing and a failure to properly
remunerate and value their role.
"Up until now we have seen a piecemeal approach in addressing the nursing and health
workforce shortages," he said.
"What we need now is action from all governments to ensure that the nursing and
midwifery workforce is better supported so nurses continue to enter the profession
and stay there."