Rural health workforce

Around 1 in 4 Australians lives in a rural or regional area. We develop policies and run programs to encourage health professionals to train and practise in rural and remote areas.

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

Pre-Fellowship Program (PFP) Guidelines

These guidelines provide information to potential participant doctors and practices and support Rural Workforce Agencies (RWAs) to administer the program.

Working Better for Medicare Review – Final report and appendices

This review examined how effective our current health workforce ‘distribution levers’ are. These levers consist of policies and geographic classifications that are intended to distribute health workforce across areas that need them most. Read the report and its appendices.