The Australian Government will extend one of the nation\u2019s premier rural health workforce initiatives, following an evaluation of the programme highlighted its effectiveness in addressing workforce shortages.
\nRegional Health Minister, Mark Coulton, said Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training Program will continue to provide more than $200\u00a0million per year over three years to fund a network of rural clinical schools, university departments of rural health, and regional training hubs across rural and remote Australia.
\n\u201cExtending the Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training (RHMT) Program reaffirms the Government\u2019s commitment to addressing health workforce shortages in rural areas.
\n\u201cThe RHMT is one of our most effective rural workforce initiatives and I\u2019m pleased to see it continue with the funding and settings it needs to deliver better outcomes for rural communities,\u201d Mr Coulton said.
\n\u201cThe evaluation demonstrates that universities continue to provide health students with quality rural clinical training experiences and that the presence of universities in regional, rural, and remote communities has social and economic benefits to these communities and their health services.\u201d
\nThe review\u2019s recommendations aim to build on the success of the 20-year-old program. These recommendations recognise the teaching innovations and maturity of the program, while allowing for some areas of reform.
\nThe reforms, to be phased in from 1 January 2022, will focus on key program outcomes such as student selection and quality placements, strengthening research networks, and responding to community and workforce need.
\n\u201cThe RHMT program has been with us for two decades,\u201d the Minister for Regional Health, Mark Coulton, said. \u201cThese reforms will open a new chapter in its success story.\u201d
\n\u201cThey will further enhance its key role in increasing the number of qualified health professionals in rural, regional and remote Australia, providing high quality training and helping to bridge the city-country divide in access to health services.\u201d
\n\u201cWe will work with the stakeholders to further strengthen and develop rural training opportunities and to keep building on this program for the future.\u201d
\nThe RHMT program is one of several Commonwealth rural health workforce programs supporting more health professionals to work in the bush.
\nIt funds a network of rural clinical schools, university departments of rural health, dental faculties offering extended rural placements, and the Northern Territory Medical Program. The RHMT program also supports 26 regional training hubs.
\nTwenty-one universities currently participate in the program and the Australian Government\u2019s annual investment is more than $200 million.
\nA closed non\u2011competitive grant opportunity will be undertaken to facilitate this three-year extension.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Australian Government will extend one of the nation\u2019s premier rural health workforce initiatives, following an evaluation of the programme highlighted its effectiveness in addressing workforce shortages. Regional Health Minister, Mark Coulton, said Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training Program will continue to provide more than $200\u00a0million per year over three years to fund a network of … Continue reading “Boost to rural health training”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}