3 August 2022

Jeremy Rockliff, Premier

Government acting to bolster our health workforce and reduce workload pressures

We have been listening to our health care workers – our nurses, midwives, doctors and allied health professionals – for the last few years, we’ve been working on solutions, and today we’re putting forward our plan.

The hard work and resilience of our healthcare workers throughout the pandemic has kept our health system functioning during what is possibly the most difficult period Tasmania has ever faced.

I have immense gratitude for our workers – they are our health system’s greatest asset.

We are seeing unprecedented levels of demand in our hospitals and this is putting enormous pressure on our frontline staff, including our nurses.

Tasmania is not alone in this – Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, and indeed across the world – every health system is in a similar situation.

In recognition of the increased workload of our hospital staff, the Government and unions recently agreed to a COVID-19 allowance that will hit the bank accounts of our hospital staff in the coming weeks. This daily allowance will be paid to hospital staff when our hospitals have spent 30 days at COVID Escalation Level 3 and remain there. For a nurse working on the frontline of our COVID response, this will see them receive up to $60 a day – or $300 a week on average for full-time staff – on top of their salary.

We have continued to listen and work with our staff to find a series of measures that will effect real change – acknowledging that there is no one simple fix.

Yesterday, the Government put a proposal to the ANMF to further address retention and recruitment and outlined our plan to reduce workload pressures in our hospitals, which will in turn alleviate pressure on hospital staff including nurses and midwives.

We know that by working together, and taking a collaborative approach, we can best address these important issues. It was a constructive meeting and I am encouraged that the ANMF has decided to put our proposal to its members.

The Government’s proposal includes retention and recruitment measures such as:

• A Return-to-work bonus payment of $2,000 pro rata for any APHRA registered health professional that returns to the frontline who has resigned in the 12 months prior to 31 July 2022;
• Reforms to the Statewide Nursing Transition to Practice Model, providing a standing job offer for all UTAS nursing graduates providing them with a pathway to permanency, accelerated probationary periods, and removing the requirement for individual interviews, significantly saving time for our senior nursing staff and fast-tracking recruitment processes;
• A trial of Clinical Nurse Coaches on public hospital wards, which has been requested by the ANMF. These coaches will mentor and support early career nurses;
• Establishing a Strategic Nursing Recruitment and Retention Working Group to bring together key health officials and union representatives to deliver new workforce modelling to manage pandemic peaks and a range of other recruitment initiatives; and
• Commencing early negotiations for a new Nurses and Midwives Wages agreement – an offer that has previously been put forward to the ANMF and still stands.

To further address workload pressures and keep people out of hospital, we will introduce a range of measures to ensure more people can receive primary care outside the hospital, in their community. This workload management plan includes:

• Increasing antiviral access for Tasmanians over the age of 70 and those eligible by making available grant funding for GPs, so they or their practice nurse can pre-emptively prescribe anti-viral medications to those who need them, should they become COVID positive;
• Providing grants for participating community pharmacies in rural and regional areas to purchase antiviral medications so they can stock these medications and make them more accessible;
• Building on the success of the COVID@home program and establishing a Statewide Virtual Primary Care Service designed to treat more people at home to reduce hospitalisations. We will start discussions with key stakeholders to fast-track this service to cover urgent gaps in rural, regional, after hours and selected urban areas;
• Nine community paramedics will be deployed across the State from today to attend eligible low acuity triple-000 callouts, with every intention of treating the patient in the community. This will reduce ramping by freeing up our ambulances to attend to higher priority emergency calls, and help to ease the pressure on Emergency Departments by caring for lower acuity patients in the comfort of their own homes rather than waiting for hours in our EDs; and
• Purchasing additional beds from private hospitals to transfer suitable patients out of the public system, freeing up beds in our major hospitals.

The combined effect of both the proposed recruitment and retention measures, and the workload management plan will bring more staff back to our hospitals, bolster our workforce to meet demand, reduce demand and improve patient flow through our hospitals, and importantly, free up beds.

There are no overnight fixes. The measures outlined today will take time and collaboration with our health workforce and their representatives to deliver real outcomes. But I am confident, that if we work together, we can make significant improvements to our health system and deliver better health outcomes for our community.

We will continue to listen, and we will continue to act, so that more Tasmanians can get the right care in the right place, at the right time.

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