HEALTH — WORKFORCE — RECRUITMENT
157. Ms J.J. SHAW to the Minister for Health:
I refer to the McGowan Labor
government's significant investment in increasing staff and resources
in our health system.
(1) Can the
minister update this house on the government's Belong campaign and how
it is helping attract international and interstate medical professionals to Western
Australia?
(2) Can the
minister advise the house on the efforts of this government to bolster the WA
Health workforce since it was elected in 2017?
Ms A.
SANDERSON replied:
I thank the
member for Swan Hills for her question.
(1)–(2) Our
healthcare workforce in Western Australia is world class. There is no question
about that. I want to thank all our frontline healthcare workers—our
doctors, nurses, allied health staff, patient support staff, cleaners, administration
staff and, of course, our paramedics, our first responders, for the incredible
work that they do in our system, particularly for the last two years when we
have been dealing with some of the impacts of lockdowns and the COVID pandemic
across the world.
I have visited state public
hospitals in both metropolitan and regional areas over the last couple of
months to talk to people there myself and see their dedication and
perseverance. There is no doubt that working in health care is incredibly rewarding,
but it is not without its challenges. We know that it has been a tough couple
of years for the healthcare workforce, particularly with some of our staffing
challenges that not just those in the healthcare sector have faced; almost
every sector in Western Australia has faced staffing challenges over the last
two years.
The state government launched a $2 million
advertising campaign towards the end of last year called the Belong campaign to
attract people back to Western Australia or back into the workforce who may
have retired or moved on. That has been
incredibly successful. I am very pleased to report to the house some of the success of that campaign so far. We have by no
means finished, but we have certainly made huge gains in recruitment
into our workforce. Overall, since January 2021, there has been an increase of
1 018 FTE in nursing and midwifery positions filled and an increase of 424 FTE
allied health professionals. When we break
that down into the various health service providers, that is quite a significant
increase. In child and adolescent services alone, that is an increase of
55.5 FTE just in allied health services. In the North Metropolitan Health
Service, there has been an increase of 60 FTE, and in the South Metropolitan
Health Service, there has been an increase of 108 FTE just in allied health
professionals. There has also been an increase of 129 FTE in the medical
workforce.
One
of the initiatives started by my predecessor in the health portfolio was the
refresher program, particularly for
nursing staff, to encourage nurses to come back into the profession. I am
pleased to say that 56 applications were
received. Most of them are registered nurses and most of them will be put into
the workforce in WA. This is a great response. We need many of these
nurses in vaccination clinics. We are bringing people back into the workforce
to provide critical vaccinations.
In
mental health, we have also seen a significant increase in staffing across the
health service providers, with 177 appointments in mental health, 102 of
those in the medical area alone. That is a really tight workforce. We are competing internationally. We are working
hard to make sure that we can attract people. The WA Country Health Service had an increase of 42
medical mental health professionals, the North Metropolitan Health Service had 152 and it goes on. I am very
pleased to say that 400 medical graduates were onboarded in February and
110 non-intern doctors were also onboarded earlier this year.
The work continues. We continue to
support our workforce with new recruits to help relieve some of those pressures, including overtime pressures,
that we are seeing in the system. We need the commonwealth to lift its
game by recruiting and incentivising GPs to Western Australia. We have the
lowest number of GPs per capita of any state, and the regions in particular
suffer significantly. I want to thank all those people who have joined the WA
Health workforce in the public sector over the last six to 12 months. I thank
our very important healthcare workforce for the work that it will do over the
next couple of months in particular.