Health Workforce Advisory Committee puts forward national strategies
Professor Andrew Hornblow
Chair, Health Workforce Advisory Committee
9 October 2002
Media Statement
The Health Workforce Advisory Committee's (HWAC) latest report provides the strategic approach needed to support the New Zealand health workforce, says HWAC chairman Prof Andrew Hornblow.
HWAC's Framing Future Directions Discussion Document, released today, follows HWAC's first stocktake document which identified workforce capacity and key workforce issues such as recruitment and retention. Framing Future Directions addresses the challenge of developing national strategic goals and proposals for health workforce development.
"Our thinking and discussions have focussed more on workforce development as an ongoing organisational and social process than a set of quick-fix solutions," said Prof Hornblow.
"Nurturing and developing the workforce must be seen as a central, ongoing and dynamic process for the health sector, not emergency intervention in times of crisis. Our aim in presenting Framing Future Directions as a discussion document is to involve the sector in the process of agreeing on goals and strategies that will lead to a responsive health workforce that meets the needs of all New Zealanders."
Framing Future Directions identified six priority areas for workforce development:
- Addressing the workforce implications of the Primary Health Care Strategy
- Promoting a healthy hospital workplace environment
- Educating a responsive health workforce
- Building the capacity of the Maori health workforce
- Building the capacity of the Pacific health workforce
- Ensuring the health and disability workforce is reponsive to the needs of disabled people
Three objectives are already being actioned within the health sector:
- Effective working relationships between the health and education sectors
- Development of comprehensive DHB databases of health workforce information
- DHBs are giving greater priority to planning their workforce at a local and regional level
Prof Hornblow said HWAC recognised the sector's wide range of expectations as to how it could and should achieve its key tasks.
"We recognise the validity of the many different perspectives on workforce development issues. Rather than look at specific issues, such as recruitment and retention, or specific groups, such as medical practitioners or nurses, the committee has attempted to look at the whole health system, the tasks it must tackle and the directions in which health care is moving," he said.
The next step is to conduct public consultation on Framing Future Directions. A series of meetings will be held in main centres between November and Christmas. Submissions on the document can be received until the end of January 2003 and feedback will be discussed at the summit meeting in March.
HWAC will then make recommendations to the Minister of Health on these goals. "By setting goals the sector will have something to aim for collectively, and will be able to measure its achievements. We look forward to discussing the HWAC's vision and proposals will the public over the next few months," said Prof Hornblow.
ENDS
For further information contact: Professor Andrew Hornblow (03) 348 6536 or (04) 496 2125
or
Alison Hannah, HWAC secretariat 025 2488 509
Questions and Answers
What are the committee's key tasks?
- To provide an independent assessment for the Minister of Health of current workforce capacity (a stocktake) and forseeable workforce needs to meet the objectives of the New Zealand Health and Disability strategies
- Advise the Minister on national goals for the health workforce and recommend strategies to develop appropriate workforce capacity
- Facilitate co-operation between organisations involved in health workforce education and training to ensure a strategic approach to health workforce supply, demand and development
- Report on the effectiveness of recommended strategies and identify required changes
Who is on the committee?
Professor Andrew Hornblow (chair), Karen Guilliland (deputy), Dr Ralph Wiles, Dr Clive Ross, Professor Colin Mantell, Mike Gourley, Dr George Salmond, Jane Lawless, Margaret Southwick, and Ian Wilson.
What was the purpose of the document?
The discussion document describes six priority areas for health workforce development in New Zealand. It is based on HWAC's initial stocktake report in April. The intention is to involve the sector in developing solutions to workforce issues, and to agree on national goals and strategies that will create a health workforce responsive to New Zealand needs.
What are the six key priority areas identified in the discussion document?
1. Addressing the workforce implications of the Primary Health Care Strategy
- The strategy provides significant opportunities and challenges.
- New ways must be found to strengthen positive working relationships between different services and different groups of health practitioners, Inter-disciplinary care and collaboration
- Capable governance and leadership is essential in this evolving environment
- There will be greater diversity of roles and functions for primary health care practitioners
- It is essential that local initiative and innovation be encouraged
2. Promotion of a healthy hospital workplace environment
- Staff will excel in a healthy hospital environment and good clinical results will be achieved in this setting
- Good organisational practices are needed to ensure the most important health sector asset, the health workforce, is valued and its capacity is maintained and enhanced
- Characteristics of a healthy workplace include trustworthy decision making and change management, and system support, and ongoing education of staff
- Mechanisms are required to create "space" so that hospitals can stop and assess their performance
3. Educating a responsive health workforce
- The education sector will be more responsive to developments in the health sector through a more collaborative approach to education and Training
- Good alliances and connections between health and education providers at a regional level
- Health workforce education is realised through life-long learning
- Education courses need to be accessible and attractive to people who represent diverse populations, if these populations are to be represented in the health workforce.
4. Building the capacity of the Māori health workforce
- Māori workforce development is identified as a key strategy for supporting Māori participation in the health sector and improving Māori health.
- HWAC has identified five areas for Māori workforce development.
5. Building the capacity of the Pacific health workforce
- Future initiatives must build on exisiting work, support the small pool of expertise available and find ways to increase this pool.
- HWAC has identified five areas for Pacific workforce development.
6. Building the capacity of the health and support workforce for people who experience disability
- People with disabilities are not a homogenous group, but there are common themes relating to workforce development.
- An intersectoral approach must be taken to developing this workforce.
- HWAC has defined four workforce functions, which require development to better meet the needs of people with disabilities.
What issues were identified in the stocktake earlier this year?
Conclusions from the stocktake included:
- To achieve the Government's vision for health services outlined in the New Zealand Health Strategy a major paradigm shift is required. The HWAC sees this shift occurring in the environment in which practitioners work, the mix of practitioners working together, and the education programmes they undertake to gain qualifications.
- Globalisation, technology, labour costs, increased consumer expectations, and an ageing and increasingly diverse population are likely to drive health workforce changes.
- New approaches to workforce planning are emerging that are based on peoples' health needs rather than the roles of health professionals.
- There are not enough Maori health practitioners and the number of Maori health workers needs to increase.
- The Primary Health Care strategy provides major opportunities for improving health, and positive sustainable workforce practices.
- The level of responsibility for various aspects of workforce development (eg national, regional, local) needs to be established.
- Individual employers or health practitioners cannot solve health workforce issues but innovative solutions need to be found collaboratively.
- HWAC is addressing long-term issues.
How is HWAC suggesting we address workforce issues?
The committee is taking a systems approach to addressing workforce issues rather than looking at each workforce group in isolation. There is no magic international solution to issues of recruitment and retention. We must find strategies for New Zealand, and Framing Future Directions is HWAC's first effort to do just that.
HWAC has tried to provide a framework for workforce development that recognises the need to integrate the vital and sometimes urgent needs of all the various health service sub-sectors, including professional and funding silos. The committee considers such a framework requires:
- A person-centred approach as the basis for workforce development, by considering the health needs of the individual in the context of family and community. Personal and population health needs rather than provider roles should be the starting point.
- Addressing systems-issues such as workplace culture, education and regulation. There is a need to acknowledge and value health practitioners and to ensure that individual work and career needs are also considered within an environment that is attractive to work in.
- An evolutionary process for workforce development, rather than the forced changes that characterised the 1990s. This means 'learning by doing', involving all stakeholders, enabling innovation at local levels, and being careful not to over- prescribe or stifle local solutions to local problems.
Responsibility in many areas of health care is shifting to an interdisciplinary team approach, with increasing emphasis on community care and support, particularly in the management of chronic illness. This developing team process may lead to health practitioners taking on new roles within their disciplines, or roles that have traditionally been undertaken by a different practitioner group.
Extra links: