Response to questions in the Health Consult Paper:

What impact has Section 19AB and DWS had on the distribution of the medical workforce to areas of workforce need? Section 19AB and District of Workforce Shortage (DWS) are part of a suite of distribution levers that have been in place, in the most part, to support building a rural health workforce, in particular the medical workforce. [...] “Growing our own” for rural Australia, as we know from research has demonstrated that rural students are much more likely to stay or go back to rural areas, as are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander practitioners who wish to be close to family and country.i Levers need to be placed in the context of population health and the whole of clinician journey (from secondary school to university, to po. [...] B) What are the alternatives to Section 19AB for achieving more equitable distribution of the medical workforce? The Alliance considers that “growing our own” rural workforce needs to be the priority and initiatives to ensure that the current graduates of medicine with rural backgrounds are prioritised to work in rural regions escalated. [...] The Alliance considers that the government should be increasing its commitment to promoting the benefits of rural practice including the breadth and depth of scope of practice, the lifestyle opportunities together with increasing measures to address other social factors such as quality housing, childcare and schooling opportunities for families and ensuring access to high quality training and supe. [...] Has the impact of the DWS been different (positive or negatively) when compared to other distribution levers? Feedback to the Alliance suggests that the Distribution Priority Areas (DPA) classification system (prior to the changes made in 2022 which negatively impacted in rural Australia) was generally considered a more sophisticated classification system with the addition of socioeconomic and dem.