Mental burnout, feeling undervalued and a lack of professional satisfaction are contributing to health practitioners leaving the profession.
A new survey by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency found more than one in 10 practitioners are either considering quitting within a year or are unsure about their future.
Ahpra surveyed 25,752 health practitioners and analysed a decade of registration data across nine specialities including medical radiation practice, occupational therapy, dental and optometry as part of its Workforce Retention and Attrition Project.
According to Ahpra, a combined regulated workforce of 920,535 health practitioners may struggle to meet the demands of Australia’s growing and ageing population in coming years.
Ahpra found the top five reasons why practitioners left their profession included mental burnout, retirement, feeling undervalued or unrecognised, lack of professional satisfaction, and work no longer being fulfilling.
Acting Chief Executive Kym Ayscough said the research underlined areas that would help strengthen workforce retention.
“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,” she 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.”
The survey found that although 79% of respondents intended to maintain their registration, more than 3000 (12%) were either unsure or intended to leave their profession.
The majority of those intending to leave planned to do so immediately or within the next year.
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There were some positive findings, with the top five reasons practitioners choose to stay being 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.
Ahpra’s analysis of registration data from 2014 to 2023, showed that the number of registered practitioners per 100,000 Australians increased by 30%.
The replacement rate – the number of practitioners leaving and being replaced by new practitioners – showed notable fluctuations over the observed period peaking in 2020 before declining significantly in 2021, but a partial recovery was observed in 2022 and 2023.
Female practitioners consistently showed higher replacement rates compared to males. Age, gender, work hours per week, and type of employment were all factors influencing a practitioner’s intentions to stay, leave or be unsure.
Male practitioners were almost twice as likely to intend to leave compared to female practitioners.
Respondents working less than 20 hours per week were nearly twice as likely to leave, or were unsure, compared with those working 29 to 40 hours.
Those working more than 50 hours per week were twice as likely to be unsure about staying compared with those working less than 20 hours.
Practitioners who were not self-employed were nearly twice as likely to be unsure about staying in their profession compared with those who were self-employed.
The survey can be found here.
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