Workforce Service Reviews
Reviews of what the future health workforce in New Zealand will look like are underway in 11 specialties. The reviews are supported by HWNZ and led by small groups of clinicians who are developing a vision of the workforce of 2020.
Nine workforce service reviews have now published their findings. These are eye health, palliative care, aged care, gastroenterology, anaesthesia, musculoskeletal, diabetes, youth health, and mental health.
With rapidly rising demand for services and constraints on finances and availability of professional skills, the reviews are tasked with thinking innovatively about how high quality services can be delivered for all New Zealand communities.
This multi-disciplinary clinician-led and patient-focused approach has the potential to deliver some of the most significant shifts in how health services are delivered for decades.
This work requires courageous and innovative thinking from clinical leaders to develop scenarios and recommendations which are then scoped further with colleagues and analysed, costed and tested.
Some clear themes have emerged from the reviews. They recommend:
- making better use of the existing health workforce, from untrained workers to highly specialist, by developing new roles and extending existing roles to make best use of the skills of all members of the health care team
- a focus on prevention, rehabilitation and self care to underpin a shift of resources from hospital to community.
- better use of the potential of IT, including telemedicine
- development of regional clinical networks to make best of resources and ensure provision of services to all communities
HWNZ is encouraging feedback on the reviews from across the sector. A national meeting of senior stakeholders from DHBs, colleges, education, professional and patient associations will be held in Wellington in August to build on the outputs of the reviews and consider their implications for future workforce planning.
Fore more information about the reviews see: