On Thursday 23 June over 75 representatives from Queensland's Health and Community Services Industries gathered for a Workforce Council breakfast seminar exploring the workforce implications of current health reforms.
The 'Planning for your Medicare Local Workforce' seminar at the Royal on the Park, Brisbane brought together delegates from government departments, peak bodies and service providers to discuss the workforce implications of the recently announced Medicare Locals scheme and the need to integrate strategic workforce planning within this new primary health care structure.
The seminar marked one of the first opportunities for Queensland industry representatives to collectively explore some of the relevant issues following the Commonwealth Government's recent announcement of five new Medicare Locals within Queensland, and further 15 nationwide.
During the course of the seminar, Workforce Council Deputy Director Alisa Hall and social research expert Dr Jenny Summerville focused on the vital need for strategic workforce planning to support the new health reforms, outlining some of the key elements and strategies necessary for such a regional workforce planning process.
According to Dr Summerville the establishment of Medicare Locals is a timely reminder of the importance of workforce planning to ensure that services are responsive to the needs of local communities.
"It is critical that the Health Industry undertakes workforce planning to ensure that it has the right number of people with the right skills and capabilities; and furthermore that they are also organised and interacting in the right ways," Dr Summerville said.
"The Workforce Council is pleased to share our many years of experience and expertise in this area by making our Workforce Planning Framework available to the industry during this important reform phase."
Ms Hall described the announcement of the Medicare Locals as the first major step in the implementation of a new, more integrated approach to delivering health care services in communities.
"The new arrangement will help to stimulate a greater level of interaction between primary health care services in each of these regions and will create an opportunity for a greater level of engagement and collaborative workforce planning amongst the organisations involved," Ms Hall said.
"We anticipate that this morning's seminar will be just one of many health reform discussions the Workforce Council has with industry as these changes continue to roll out over the months and years to come."
View the Workforce Council's Workforce Planning Process framework or for more information the new Medicare Locals visit the Your Health website.
