Retention and Productivity Report †Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about the Retention and Productivity Report. Answer: Introduction The attrition rate of the nurses in the nursing workforce is glaringly high and therefore, it becomes an imperative to study the nature of the nursing profession prevalent in the country. The aim of this assignment is to provide a critical overview of the health workforce in Australia has been quite high. In this context, the goal of the research report is to document the plight of nursing workforce in Australia, critical overview of the changing characteristics, conduct an environmental scan, geographical distribution of the nursing workforce and Australias Future Health Workforce (AFHW) is responsible for outlining and preparing medium to long-term national workforce planning projection. The aim of the workforce projection is to recognize the potential gaps in the future supply and demand of the workforce. This identification of shortcoming enables the government to improve them. In 2009, there was an increase in nurses by 6.2 per cent (Schofield, Page, Lyle Walker, 2006). There was an increase in the number of nurses which is 13.3. Nursing has also been found to be a female dominated profession and around 90.4 per cent of the workforces are women. The Nursing and Midwifery Labour Force Survey identified that there are 320,982 out of which 260121 were registered nurses (RN) and 60,861 nurses were enrolled nurses (EN) (Gaynor et al., 2007). On an average, the weekly hours of midwives and employed nurses increased from 33. 0 hours in 2005 to 33.3 hours in 2009 (Department of Health | Nursing Workforce Sustainability - Improvi ng Nurse Retention and Productivity report, 2018). In the year 2012, the number of Registered Nurses (RNS) were 273, 404 million and around 60, 000 Enrolled Nurses (ENs) (Creegan, Duffield Forrester, 2003). Most nurses employed were 90.6 per cent as clinicians. 32. 6 per cent nurses were employed in the surgical areas, 17. 3 per cent nurses were employed in the critical care unit and 10. 6 per cent of the nurses were employed for the care of the aged (Bloom, Canning Sevilla, 2001). Around 52, 273 nurses were authorized as midwives. Out of which 2, 049 nurses directly entered as midwives. This shows that there has been a robust investment on nursing in the Australian economy. The cost of employing the nurses along with the cost of education is borne by the taxpayer. In 2015, it was found that about 2 in 5 nurses and midwives were in the age group of 50 and beyond it (39.0 per cent). The average age of these nurses was 44. 4 years. In 2015, 360, 008 nurses and midwives were register ed and 331, 015 nurses were recruited in nursing and midwifery. Regarding the gender of the nurses it was found that out of 10, 9 nurses were employed as midwives. Among them the per cent of women are 90.3 per cent. All the midwives were women (98. 6 per cent). The average ages of the nurses in 2015 were 44.4 years (Francis Mills, 2011). The actions on the nursing system harps on the key principles of leadership that emphasizes on building the workplace capacity, retention that emphasizes on the preparation of the early career and workplace support, and productivity that would foster innovation in the workplace. in the RN workforce in 2030. There have been noted differences in the 2030 supply and demand. There has been a shortage of 44, 500 FTEs. There is a growing demand of the nurses in Australia due to the increase in the ageing population. Although there has been a considerable increase in the advertisement of nursing vacancies, the corresponding filling the gap has been less. There has been a decrease of 90 per cent in 2016 to 80 per cent in 2017. There has been an increase in the ratio of suitable vacancy from 3.2 per cent to 4.2 per cent (Crettenden et al., 2017). There has been no change in the number of enrolled nurses (EN) in Australia. For the past three years, regional employers have found it difficult to recruit midwives as contrast to the employers in the metropolitan cities. Since the year 2010, it was recorded that the fill rate for the nurses is between 80 and 90 per cent. There has been a decrease in the average vacancy from 14. 6 per cent in the year 2016 to 13.1 per cent in 2017. There has been an increase in the vacancy from 3.2 per cent to 4.2 per cent (Preston, 2009). Environmental Scan of the Australian nursing workforce-PESTEL Analysis of the nursing workforce in Australia It was found that the nurses use a robust stock and flow structure to make predictions about the future supply of the workforce. The workforce of the nurses was broken down into gender cohorts and age. There are variety of flow rates that are applied to each cohort. This model incorporates the variety of flow rates through progressive ageing at the workforce through the medium of iteration of the stock and flow process. To assess the demand of the workforce, the utilization approach is used. There is an expected change in the in the size of the population and the composition is taken into account for the projection period. Australia provides a favourable condition for the nurses from overseas who wish to work in Australia. The characteristics of different nursing sectors play an important role in shaping the workforce structure and render the workforce projection (Parker, Walker Hegarty, 2010). Some of these nursing sectors are aged care, acute care, critical care, emergency, and nu rses in the mental health sector. Acute nurses cater to patients suffering from infection, metabolic disorders and other degenerative issues (Health Workforce Australia, 2014). Nurses employed in the acute sector mainly performed the clinical task. The task of the aged care nurses is to cater to the elderly population. The mental health sector-nursing workforce is found to be part of the largest undersupply among all the sectors. Nurses in the critical care and emergency unit have 96 per cent registered nurses. It is found that nursing undersupply has reached to 38, 000 in 2030 (Thomas, Chaperon Federation, 2013) This can be attributed to low number of entrants in the profession and high exit rates. The number of registered nurses in Australia is in a sorry state. The number of registered workforce in Australia comprising of the female population is 33 per cent.43 per cent of the nurses are in the remote indigenous communities. There has been a considerable decrease in the number of registered nurses with the qualification of midwifery is 55 per cent. The number of child nurses are 39 per cent in remote Australia (Lenthall et al., 2011). The nursing system in Australia has witnessed a preference for the private sector. It was found that highest proportion of nurses leave the nursing workforce in the formative stage of their career or after the age of 60. The healthcare workforce comprises of multi-disciplinary workforce and the productivity of the team of healthcare professionals are interdependent. The high attrition rate among the nurses is situated in the broader context of the uncertainty in the global economic scenario. The recommendation proposed by the Nursing Workforce Sustainability is that Australia needs to strengthen their training capacity and ensure promising employment opportunities for the newly graduated nurses. Creating a sustainable leadership plan will be important in driving change in the retention and productivity rate of the nurses. They should be provided with appropriate education and socialized in robust nursing culture. Information and good quality evidence will usher in positive change. At least some selected nurses should be equipped with key skills that would be helpfu l for their future. A compatible workplace environment should be provided so that the skills and the roles can be performed with alacrity. Innovation needs to be intensified through expansion of employment opportunities. All these recommendations are equally suitable for the present context of nursing workforce in Australia. Conclusion Therefore, it can be concluded that there is a growing demand for nurses in Australia; however the supply of nurses is not in proportion with the demand. There is stark scarcity of nurses in the remote areas. To respond to this issue, nurses should be provided with high-quality education and training. They should also be provided with employment opportunities and encouraged to develop leadership skills with the aim of retaining the nurses and preventing their high attrition rate. References Bloom, D. E., Canning, D., Sevilla, J. (2001).The effect of health on economic growth: theory and evidence(No. w8587). National Bureau of Economic Research. Creegan, R., Duffield, C., Forrester, K. (2003). Casualisation of the nursing workforce in Australia: driving forces and implications.Australian Health Review,26(1), 201-208. Crettenden, I. F., McCarty, M. V., Fenech, B. J., Heywood, T., Taitz, M. C., Tudman, S. (2014). How evidence-based workforce planning in Australia is informing policy development in the retention and distribution of the health workforce.Human resources for health,12(1), 7. Department of Health | Nursing Workforce Sustainability - Improving Nurse Retention and Productivity report. (2018).Health.gov.au. Retrieved 30 March 2018, from https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/nursing-workforce-sustainability-improving-nurse-retention-and-productivity. Francis, K. L., Mills, J. E. (2011). Sustaining and growing the rural nursing and midwifery workforce: Understanding the issues and isolating directions for the future.Collegian,18(2), 55-60. Gaynor, L., Gallasch, T., Yorkston, E., Stewart, S., Bogossian, F., Fairweather, C., ... Anastasi, J. (2007). The future nursing workforce in Australia: baseline data for a prospective study of the profile, attrition rates and graduate outcomes in a contemporary cohort of undergraduates.Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, The,25(2), 11. Health Workforce Australia (HWA). (2014). Nursing workforce sustainability: improving nurse retention and productivity. Lenthall, S., Wakerman, J., Opie, T., Dunn, S., MacLeod, M., Dollard, M., ... Knight, S. (2011). Nursing workforce in very remote Australia, characteristics and key issues.Australian Journal of Rural Health,19(1), 32-37. Parker, R., Walker, L., Hegarty, K. (2010). Primary care nursing workforce in Australia: a vision for the future.Australian Family Physician,39(3), 159. Preston, B. (2009). The Australian nurse and midwifery workforce: issues, developments and the future.Collegian,16(1), 25-34. Schofield, D. J., Page, S. L., Lyle, D. M., Walker, T. J. (2006). Ageing of the baby boomer generation: how demographic change will impact on city and rural GP and nursing workforce.Rural and Remote Health,6(4), 1-9. Thomas, I., Chaperon, Y., Federation, A. N. (2013). Submission to the health workforce Australia consultation paper on nursing workforce retention and productivity.Australian Nursing Federation.