About the rural health workforce
Find out about the status of the rural health workforce in Australia.
What we do
How we support the rural health workforce with policies and programs.
Stronger Rural Health Strategy
Read about our 10-year strategy to improve the health of people in rural Australia.
Rural health workforce programs
See a list of our programs to help health professionals in remote and rural locations.
Did you know?
7 million
Australians live in remote and regional areas
3,000
extra doctors and nurses will be working in rural areas by 2028
240
is the number of rotations into rural primary care settings that we fund for junior doctors each year
Resources
Resources
Innovative Models of Care (IMOC) Program – NSW Collaborative Care Projects
The Rural Doctors Network have developed and tested unique approaches under the Innovative Models of Care Program to provide sustainable primary health workforce models in 5 New South Wales locations.
5-Year International Medical Graduates (IMG) Recruitment Scheme Guidelines – March 2025
The 5-Year International Medical Graduates Recruitment Scheme improves access to doctors in regional, rural and remote areas. It increases the supply of doctors to work in these areas where their services are needed the most.
Previous exceptional circumstances reviews and outcomes
The Distribution Working Group (DWG) reviews requests to change an area’s classification. The status recommendation and final decisions are provided to the Minister. All previous outcomes and reviews are published in this document.
Primary Health Networks (PHN) (2017) – concordance files – Commonwealth Electoral Divisions (2021)
Researchers can use these concordance files for Commonwealth Electoral Divisions 2021 to Primary Health Networks 2017 to undertake geospatial and data analysis.