Health Workforce Development: An Overview

There have been reported shortages in both the regulated and unregulated workforce in New Zealand, in particular of medical practitioners, nurses in primary care, mental health professionals, allied and primary health professionals, Māori and Pacific practitioners, and support workers. There is also an ongoing issue of a maldistribution of workers between rural and urban locations. In the future, the constraints on labour supply in New Zealand will necessitate a much greater focus on growing the health workforce and improving the performance and productivity of the available workforce. The area in which there has been the most consistent investment in workforce development since the 1990s is mental health. All of this diverse national workforce development activity can be best understood if it is mapped into a single framework. The mental health workforce development framework has been used to provide a comprehensive overview of workforce development activity. The Future Workforce Framework covers: workforce development infrastructure, organisational development, recruitment and retention, training and development, and information, research and evaluation. [from executive summary]