2013 Environmental Scan - Community Services & Health Industry ...

THE CARE INDUSTRY – A TIME FOR ACTION
Figure 2: Projected growth in selected Community Services and Health
occupations, 2011-2012 to 2016-2017
Additional ‘000 workers, 2011–12 to 2016–17 (projected)
50
40
30
20
10
0
46.8
Registered
Nurses
Source: DEEWR 2012.
23.9
Aged and
Disabled
Carers
WORKFORCE
SHORTAGES AND
GROWTH
18.4
Child
Carers
In the industry there are a number of major
current and projected workforce shortages,
at professional, managerial levels, and
the operational level in particular. At the
operational level many of the occupations
are VET based, and the following table
(Table 2) details in order of magnitude the
occupations projected to have significant
growth in the next 5 to 6 years.
A full list of all the current and projected
workforce shortages can be examined in
Table C3 in Appendix C.
13.6
Nursing
Support and
Personal
Care Workers
9.2 8.3 8.0
Generalist
Medical
Practitioners
Welfare
Support
Workers
Education
Aides
Under AWPA’s most optimistic scenario
(‘Long Boom’) demand for aged and
disabled carers and child carers will
increase by 77 per cent. Under the most
pessimistic scenario (‘The Ring of Fire’),
these occupations will grow by 40 per
cent, outstripping growth in the registered
nurse workforce. In its future scenarios,
AWPA is foreshadowing an increasing
reliance on VET qualified workers to meet
the demand for community services and
health, particularly if governments continue
to constrain their additional spending on
health and community services and seek
greater efficiency.
Despite the methodological issues, a
renewed emphasis should be placed on
assessing productivity within community
services and health industry to ensure that
scarce resources are being optimally used.
Across the industry, stakeholders, training
providers, and regulators will need to work
together to make better use of the existing
workforce and resource level. Health
Workforce Australia (HWA) has begun
leading this work in the health sector, with
CS&HISC involvement. The five strategies
identified in its National Health Workforce
Innovation and Reform Strategic Framework
for Action 2011-2015 (Framework for
Action) (HWA, 2011a) focus on:
1. Services delivery, including
“redefinition of roles, inter professional
collaboration, enabling professionals to
work to their full scope of practice and
creation of supporting technologies
and information systems” (p.16).
2. Capacity and skills development, with
a focus on inter professional training -
working together – sharing knowledge.
3. Leadership, by managers and also
staff, as “leadership can come from
anyone in the system” (p. 21).
4. Workforce planning that focuses on all
sectors, not just the public sector (the
traditional sector of interest).
5. Policy, funding and regulation, in
particular “education, occupational
regulation and health care funding and
organisation... to appropriately balance
generalist and specialist skills within
disciplines to address equity of access
and cost issues” (p. 27).
The Queensland Government in 2012
signalled its interest in following the
approach outlined by HWA by looking at
promoting generalist roles that can be
deployed across aligned sectors such as
aged care, disability, and mental health
sectors (Springborg, 2012). Aligning skill
pathways is discussed further in Section
2. While HWA has a remit to consider all
the workforce as seen in the Framework
for Action the focus by HWA has largely
been focussed on the professional degree
qualified workforce.
Given the composition of the health
workforce now and into the future, more
emphasis must be placed on health
professionals who are VET qualified and
constitute the majority of the community
services and health industry workforce.
Examining jurisdictions where demand
driven funding has been introduced, recent
trends suggest that demand for personal
services courses is coming at the expense
of areas of critical shortage, such as health.
CHANGES TO
THE VET MARKET
In April 2012, the Australian Government
and all State and Territory governments
signed a revised version of the National
Agreement for Skills and Workforce
Development, committing them to
introduce a national ‘entitlement’ up to
Certificate III that can be used by any
provider, public or private (COAG, 2012).
States and Territories are moving to
implement these reforms.
The preliminary evidence from Victoria,
which was the first State to introduce
an entitlement model, is that this has
led to an increase in publicly funded
enrolments in community services and
health qualifications. However, it has also
led to concerns within industry about the
regulation of new entry training providers
to the VET sector and the quality of
training (Wheelahan, 2012). These effects
are covered in more depth in Section 3
(Current Impact of Training Packages).
Table 2: Community Services and Health current occupation numbers
and projected numbers and percentages
ANZSCO
Occupation
†
Nov 2011
‘000
ˆ2016-17
‘000
ˆ% change
2011-2016/17
2544 Registered Nurses 228.0 274.8 20.5
4231 Aged and Disabled Carers 3 116.8 140.6 20.4
4211 Child Carers 3 115.1 133.4 16.0
4233 Nursing Support and Personal
Care Workers 3 82.1 95.6 16.5
4221 Education Aides 3 80.4 88.4 9.9
2231 Human Resource Professionals 4 61.2 68.9 12.5
4117 Welfare Support Workers 3 56.2 64.6 14.8
2531 Generalist Medical Practitioners 52.3 61.5 17.7
6214 Pharmacy Sales Assistants 5 34.6 36.2 4.6
3112 Medical Technicians 3 28.1 32.4 15.3
4114 Enrolled and Mothercraft Nurses 3 27.5 30.6 11.0
2726 Welfare, Recreation and
Community Arts Workers
2513 Occupational and Environmental
Health Professionals
26.0 29.5 13.7
24.5 27.8 13.7
2725 Social Workers 22.2 25.7 16.0
2512 Medical Imaging Professionals 22.0 25.3 14.8
2723 Psychologists 21.9 25.3 15.4
2515 Pharmacists 21.1 23.1 9.9
4232 Dental Assistants 3 20.9 23.2 11.0
2411 Early Childhood
(Pre-primary School) Teachers
20.3 22.3 9.9
2346 Medical Laboratory Scientists 19.9 21.2 6.2
Source: † Nov 2011 from ABS Census of Population and Housing, 2006 and 2011. ˆ2016-17 and % change 2011-
2016/17 from DEEWR, Occupational projections, http://www.deewr.gov.au/lmip/default.aspxLMIP/Publications/
IndustryEmploymentProjections.
Notes: Community Services and Health occupations are defined as occupations in which the majority of employment is in the
Health Care and Social Assistance industry and/or which are identified in training.gov.au as aligned to a qualification from the
Community Services or Health Training Packages (see Appendix E:Table E1).
ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN 2013 : SECTION ONE LATEST INTELLIGENCE
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