Over 200 healthcare employers have had their say!

5 min | News

We are very excited at Wavelength to publish the 2012 Health Workforce Report which surveyed over 200 healthcare employers about the challenges they face and their expectations for the next 6 months. Richard Taylor, Client Relationship Manager who led the study, would like to fill you in on the key results and gain your feedback. I hope you find this report as interesting as we did writing it. Enjoy!

Guest blog: Richard Taylor, Wavelength International Client Relationship Manager

Wavelength Director and Founder, Claire Ponsford’s recent guest blog highlighted some of the challenges the Australian healthcare system will face as it approaches 2025.

But what about the more immediate challenges it faces in delivering healthcare today?

We recently conducted our biannual Health Workforce Report to explore some of these challenges. We surveyed over 200 Australian healthcare employers and came away with a fascinating insight into their hiring expectations for the next 6 months and the impacts of some of the changes to the healthcare landscape.

For more detail about this report, contact us.

I personally spoke with a number of our long-standing clients and what struck me most was the difference between what they would like (or are being told) to achieve over the next 6 months and what they think they will be able to.

Take the concept of reducing the current reliance on locums. While the majority of employers indicated increased budget constraints meant they intended to reduce the reliance on locums, I certainly got the sense that they felt in practice this was going to be far more difficult.

Similarly, while almost exclusively everyone talked about wanting to increase their permanent staffing numbers (a sure fire way to reduce the reliance on locums), there was a resignation to the fact that this was not as easy as it sounded and they faced a multitude of challenges in achieving their aim.

It was the same story regarding the reliance on overseas-trained doctors (OTDs). Would love to hire more local doctors but there just aren’t enough of them.

It may be that the challenges of 2025 are not as far away as we might think with many of our clients already suffering from a mal-distribution of the medical workforce, a shortage of locally trained doctors and an over-reliance on overseas-trained doctors.

While the report paints a picture of where we are today we have also tried to provide some practical advice and tips on how you might begin to address some of these issues.

I hope you enjoy reading the report and certainly welcome any thoughts or opinions you might like to share.

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