Occasional Paper - Shaping the Health Workforce

Shaping the Health Workforce: why employers need to lead the thinking and decisions in the health labour market
Date of publication: September 1998

Abstract
In the years ahead health care providers will face increasing pressures to provide cost-effective, quality health care that is built around the needs of patients and their communities. Health care providers will need to pay increasing attention to the configuration of their labour and other inputs. In this environment centralised forms of health workforce planning are ineffective, because they are not refined enough to take into account the many complex influences that affect any labour market. Employers and employees have better information on these influences, which include relative wages, changes to service delivery and work practices, consumer preferences, and the costs and benefits of training. Therefore, employers in the health and disability sector are better placed than central government agencies to lead the decisions in the development of their workforce.

Although each employer will have its own particular strategy for the development of their workforce, there are likely to be aspects of strategy that would benefit from collaboration among employers, with input from educators and health care workers. For example, employers will want to articulate their collective views about education and training to education and training providers and to accrediting agencies. The best way that central government agencies can contribute is by facilitating the thinking and communication among employers, educators and the professions in the health and disability sector.

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