Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, , 3:30:14 to 3:34:31
The National Rural Health Commissioner discusses the Specialist Training Program and the importance of generalism in addressing workforce shortages in remote areas.
Topics: Health, Education
Speakers: Prof Jennifer May, Hon Anne Ruston
Just interested in what input you've had as the Commissioner in the reforms in relation to the specialist training programme to support training positions in rural, regional and remote Australia.
Thank you for your question, Senator. I've been a keen observer of the specialist training program for many years. In fact, prior to even taking on this role as the National Rural Health Commissioner. As many were in a stakeholder consultation that occurred prior to Christmas, which was conducted on behalf of the department and at which a number of different options and strategies were canvassed. That was the last opportunity I had for formal discussion about the programme, but I can hand you over to the department for where that's up to you.
Oh no, I'm actually more interested in in your involvement in it, and I suppose you know would you like to have more involvement?
I remain a vocal observer and I do that on behalf of an understanding of some of the concepts that we need to see embedded in that specialist training program, which has been a really important program, but doesn't walk alone. So unless there is continuing involvement with the states and territories and the colleges, STP program on its own will not manage our non-GP specialist training requirements into rural. So I think the STP program is really important, and I'm looking forward to hearing about its passage, but I'm actually more also exercised about how the Commonwealth is going to work with the states and territories on that larger workforce piece.
Yep. So in terms of your views from a rural, regional and remote perspective, what do you think the main challenges are in terms of the this program and it and its ability to actually solve for so what what you know you've got an idea here, a problem here. I mean, what what is the challenge from getting the solution to the problem?
Sure. So what we're talking about is the reduced workforce availability in rural and remote, which is leading to a challenge in service access. So that reduced workforce availability has been a long-term pesky problem in Australia. I believe we have a quantum of health professionals, but our major challenge is that distribution, as you're saying. Clearly a long-term project to identifying those most likely to work in rural and remote. And there is some good evidence from existing Commonwealth programs and the RHMT program has been in existence for about 20 years. So first comment is that these principles of these programs need to be long-term and they need to be embedded. I think the second thing is the concept of generalism, and that is a concept that works through our non-GP specialist workforce. It r relates through our GP workforce, and it also will and should relate to our nursing midwifery and allied health workforce, because if we enhance scope of practice and capacity in rural, we will improve the provision of those health services. So rural generalism has a role here in intersecting with the STP program because clearly that initiative in developing general practitioners who have not only a scope in primary care but also emergency and also in a special scope that overlaps with specialist care is a really important component here. So if I guess the picture I'm painting is generalism is really important in terms of the way where we train and the way we train is really important. So SDP needs to have those concepts embedded.