Workforce forecast revised
August 10, 2010
RECENT changes to Australia’s
skilled migration program are likely
to significantly reduce the supply of
pharmacists for the country’s
health system in the future.
Effective 01 July overseas
pharmacists are no longer able to
apply for independent immigration
status under the program, with the
move a hot topic at today’s
Pharmacy Workforce Symposium
convened by the Guild in Canberra.
The Symposium aimed to
examine the findings of a
Pharmacy Workforce Planning
Research Project which was funded
under the Fourth Community
Pharmacy Agreeement.
Attendees from across the
industry including the Guild, PSA,
universities, the Pharmacy Board of
Australia, pharmacy students and
the health department took part in
robust discussions on the future of
the pharmacy workforce.
The project outcomes were
presented by consultant Lee Ridoutt
of Human Capital Alliance, who
demonstrated a workforce planning
tool which allows modelling of
future pharmacist supply and
demand in Australia.
A large number of variables can
be ‘tweaked’ in the model to
provide best guess predictions, and
earlier in the year the program
caused some consternation
because it predicted (PD 04 Mar)
that there would be an oversupply
of about 3000 pharmacists in
Australia by 2025.
Ridoutt emphasised that these
figures were based on a number of
assumptions, but said that they
could also be interpreted in two
ways: either as a concerning worry
about an oversupply, or alternatively
as providing significant additional
capacity for pharmacists to take on
new professional services roles.
Notwthstanding this, adjusting
the model to take into account the
changes to the skilled migration
program significantly lessened the
gap to about 500 extra pharmacists
across Australia in 2025.
The changes highlighted the
need for accurate data on
registration information and
tracking of pharmacist career paths
to help better predict movements in
the national health workforce.
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