The NSW Government will implement a major regional health workforce incentive scheme in the largest shakeup of its kind ever undertaken in the state.
The scheme will be delivered alongside new training and recruitment pathways to build a pipeline of regionally based workers and futureproof healthcare in the bush.
Deputy Premier and Minister for Regional NSW Paul Toole said $883 million will be spent over the next four years to attract and retain staff in rural and regional NSW by transforming the way health clinicians are incentivised in the bush.
\u201cThis package delivers on the NSW Government\u2019s commitment to strengthen the regional health workforce, ensuring that more than three million people who live, work and play in rural and regional NSW continue to have access to high quality healthcare well into the future,\u201d Mr Toole said.
\u201cThese incentive packages will be tailored to not only attract more clinicians to these services but help retain those hard working staff and encourage them to put down roots.\u201d
The package will target critical and hard to fill roles to ensure the operation of regional health facilities, including nurses and midwives, paramedics, pathologists and scientific staff, pharmacists and allied health professionals, as well as support and ancillary staff.
Minister for Regional Health Bronnie Taylor said the package will be used to deliver innovative, bespoke incentives for staff so they move to or stay in regional NSW.
\u201cHard-to-fill, critical roles in rural and remote locations can be incentivised by offering health workers recruitment and retention incentive packages worth up to $10,000 per year plus assistance with accommodation and relocation and some other non-financial incentives,\u201d Mrs Taylor said.
Incentives can include a range of benefits, such as salary boost, sign on bonuses, retention payments, additional leave, assistance with childcare expenses, assistance with transport and housing support, and access to training and education.
In addition to the incentives package, a range of targeted measures are being funded which will support the NSW Government in building a pipeline of future nurses, doctors and other clinical staff who are based in the bush and have the skills, confidence and expertise needed to work in regional health care facilities.
Mrs Taylor said one of these measures is the expansion of training positions for nurse practitioner roles in rural locations that struggle to attract doctors.
\u201cThese are highly skilled nursing professionals that can operate autonomously in complex clinical settings. The expansion of these training positions will see people in rural NSW receiving the highest level of quality care and a brighter future in terms of health outcomes,\u201d Mrs Taylor said.
The $883 million investment will include funding for:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Treasurer Matt Kean said the rural and regional workforce boost forms part of the NSW Government\u2019s overall record $4.5 billion investment in more than 10,000 health staff.
\u201cWe believe that access to the best quality healthcare shouldn\u2019t be a postcode lottery. That\u2019s why we\u2019re recruiting 10,148 full-time equivalent staff right across NSW over the four years in what is the nation\u2019s largest-ever health workforce boost, and 3,800 of these positions will be in regional areas,\u201d Mr Kean said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The NSW Government will implement a major regional health workforce incentive scheme in the largest shakeup of its kind ever undertaken in the state. The scheme will be delivered alongside new training and recruitment pathways to build a pipeline of regionally based workers and futureproof healthcare in the bush. Deputy Premier and Minister for Regional NSW Paul … Continue reading “$883 million more reasons to work in the bush”<\/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":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17033","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=17033"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17034,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17033\/revisions\/17034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}