Survey puts health workforce retention strategies in focus

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) has surveyed 25,752 health practitioners and analysed a decade of registration data to identify — across nine regulated health professions — the factors driving practitioners’ intentions to stay or leave or be unsure; research that underlines areas to focus action and improve health workforce retention.

The survey (conducted in 2024) and 10-year (2014–2023) registration data analysis — across the Chinese medicine, chiropractic, dental, medical radiation practice, occupational therapy, optometry, osteopathy, paramedicine and podiatry professions — reveals that while most of the Australian health practitioners surveyed said they wanted to stay in their profession, more than one in 10 are unsure about their future or have plans to leave within a year.

Reasons to leave or stay

The top five reasons influencing practitioners to leave their profession were: mental burnout, retirement, feeling undervalued/unrecognised, lack of professional satisfaction and work no longer being fulfilling. “A resilient health workforce is essential to keeping our communities safe, healthy and growing, and the wellbeing of our practitioners goes hand-in-hand with that,” said Rachel Phillips, Chair of the Psychology Board of Australia and Co-convener of the Forum of National Registration and Accreditation Scheme Chairs.

Despite a regulated workforce of 920,535 health practitioners in 2024, forecasts predict the sector will struggle to meet the demands of Australia’s growing and ageing population in coming years; Phillips said that improvements in the above areas could have a major impact on increasing retention in the health workforce and, importantly, improving the health and wellbeing of practitioners.

“These findings highlight the importance of a working environment that is both professionally fulfilling and supportive of practitioner wellbeing — not only for the welfare of our valued practitioners themselves, but also the health needs of the patients they care for,” Phillips said. As to those practitioners choosing to stay, their top five reasons were: enjoying the work, finding fulfilment and meaning in the work, flexibility and work-life balance, the respective health profession being what they trained for, and a sense of achievement.

Factors influencing intentions

Ahpra’s analysis of 10-year registration data showed that the number of registered practitioners per 100,000 Australians increased by 30%, with the replacement rate showing notable fluctuations over the observed period — peaking in 2020 before declining significantly in 2021, with a partial recovery observed in 2022 and 2023.

Age, gender, type of employment and work hours per week were all factors influencing a practitioner’s intentions to stay, leave or be unsure:

• Age — practitioners above 60 years were nearly three times more likely to leave and twice as likely to be unsure compared with those aged 35–60 years; while compared with practitioners under 35 years they were twice as likely to leave.
• Gender — concerning intention to leave, male practitioners were almost twice as likely to have this intention compared with female practitioners; female practitioners also exhibited consistently higher replacement rates compared with males.
• Type of employment — practitioners who were not self-employed were almost twice as likely to be unsure about staying in their profession compared with those who were self-employed.
• Work hours per week — those working less than 20 hours per week were nearly twice as likely to leave or be unsure compared with those working 29–40 hours; those who worked more than 50 hours per week were especially impacted, being twice as likely to be unsure about staying compared with those working less than 20 hours.

Areas to focus action

Ahpra said this research has enabled it to identify specific groups that would benefit from targeted retention strategies and interventions by employers. Underlying personal, professional and workplace factors such as mental burnout, lack of recognition and working conditions have been identified by Ahpra as areas that, if addressed, could improve retention of Australian health practitioners.

“The more we understand why people choose to stay or leave their health profession, the better placed the health sector is to address these factors within the workforce,” Ahpra Acting Chief Executive Officer Kym Ayscough said. “This research has identified not only why people are staying or leaving, but who makes up those cohorts, which can be used to inform targeted retention interventions.”

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‘Trends in retention and attrition in nine regulated health professions in Australia’, a 2025 paper on this research, has been published open access in Australian Health Review and you can read it at doi.org/10.1071/AH24268.

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Image credit: iStock.com/SDI Productions