Patterns of health workforce turnover and retention in Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services in remote communities of the Northern Territory and Western Australia, 2017-2019.

BACKGROUND: Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHSs) in Australia aim to optimise access to comprehensive and culturally safe primary health care (PHC) for Aboriginal populations. Central to quality service provision is the retention of staff. However, there is lack of published research reporting patterns of staff turnover and retention specific to ACCHSs. This study quantified staff turnover and retention in regional and remote ACCHSs in the Northern Territory (NT) and Western Australia (WA), and examined correlations between turnover and retention metrics, and ACCHSs' geographical and demographic characteristics. METHODS: The study used 2017-2019 payroll data for health workers in 22 regional and remote PHC clinics managed by 11 ACCHSs. Primary outcome measures included annual turnover and 12-month stability rates, calculated at both clinic and organisation levels. RESULTS: There was a median of five client-facing (Aboriginal health practitioners, allied health professionals, doctors, nurses/midwives, and 'other health workers' combined) and two non-client-facing (administrative and physical) staff per remote clinic, at any timepoint. Mean annual turnover rates for staff were very high, with 151% turnover rates at the clinic level and 81% turnover rates at the organisation level. Mean annual turnover rates for client-facing staff were 164% and 75%, compared to 120% and 98% for non-client-facing staff, at clinic and organisational levels, respectively. Mean 12-month stability rates were low, with clinic-level stability rates of only 49% and organisation-level stability rates of 58%. Mean annual clinic-level turnover rates were 162% for non-Aboriginal staff and 81% for Aboriginal staff. Both workforce metrics were moderately to highly correlated with the relative remoteness of clinics, size of regular clients serviced, and average annual headcount of employees in each clinic (p values < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Participating ACCHSs in remote NT and WA have very high turnover and low retention of healthcare staff. Overall, clinic-level turnover rates increase as distance from regional centres increases and are lower for Aboriginal staff, suggesting that greater employment of Aboriginal staff could help stabilise staffing. Improved retention could reduce burden on ACCHSs' resources and may also support quality of service delivery due to improved cultural safety and continuity of care.

Attitudes to Short-Term Staffing and Workforce Priorities of Community Users of Remote Aboriginal Community-Controlled Health Services: A Qualitative Study.

In recent years, there has been an increasing trend of short-term staffing in remote health services, including Aboriginal Community-Controlled Health Services (ACCHSs). This paper explores the perceptions of clinic users' experiences at their local clinic and how short-term staffing impacts the quality of service, acceptability, cultural safety, and continuity of care in ACCHSs in remote communities. Using purposeful and convenience sampling, community users (aged 18+) of the eleven partnering ACCHSs were invited to provide feedback about their experiences through an interview or focus group. Between February 2020 and October 2021, 331 participants from the Northern Territory and Western Australia were recruited to participate in the study. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim, and written notes and transcriptions were analysed deductively. Overall, community users felt that their ACCHS provided comprehensive healthcare that was responsive to their health needs and was delivered by well-trained staff. In general, community users expressed concern over the high turnover of staff. Recognising the challenges of attracting and retaining staff in remote Australia, community users were accepting of rotation and job-sharing arrangements, whereby staff return periodically to the same community, as this facilitated trusting relationships. Increased support for local employment pathways, the use of interpreters to enhance communication with healthcare services, and services for men delivered by men were priorities for clinic users.

Primary health care utilisation and delivery in remote Australian clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic.

INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic period (2020 to 2022) challenged and overstretched the capacity of primary health care services to deliver health care globally. The sector faced a highly uncertain and dynamic period that encompassed anticipation of a new, unknown, lethal and highly transmissible infection, the introduction of various travel restrictions, health workforce shortages, new government funding announcements and various policies to restrict the spread of the COVID-19 virus, then vaccination and treatments. This qualitative study aims to document and explore how the pandemic affected primary health care utilisation and delivery in remote and regional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff working in 11 Aboriginal Community-Controlled Health Services (ACCHSs) in outer regional, remote and very remote Australia. Interviews were transcribed, inductively coded and thematically analysed. RESULTS: 248 staff working in outer regional, remote and very remote primary health care clinics were interviewed between February 2020 and June 2021. Participants reported a decline in numbers of primary health care presentations in most communities during the initial COVID-19 lock down period. The reasons for the decline were attributed to community members apprehension to go to the clinics, change in work priorities of primary health care staff (e.g. more emphasis on preventing the virus entering the communities and stopping the spread) and limited outreach programs. Staff forecasted a future spike in acute presentations of various chronic diseases leading to increased medical retrieval requirements from remote communities to hospital. Information dissemination during the pre-vaccine roll-out stage was perceived to be well received by community members, while vaccine roll-out stage information was challenged by misinformation circulated through social media. CONCLUSIONS: The ability of ACCHSs to be able to adapt service delivery in response to the changing COVID-19 strategies and policies are highlighted in this study. The study signifies the need to adequately fund ACCHSs with staff, resources, space and appropriate information to enable them to connect with their communities and continue their work especially in an era where the additional challenges created by pandemics are likely to become more frequent. While the PHC seeking behaviour of community members during the COVID-19 period were aligned to the trends observed across the world, some of the reasons underlying the trends were unique to outer regional, remote and very remote populations. Policy makers will need to give due consideration to the potential effects of newly developed policies on ACCHSs operating in remote and regional contexts that already battle under resourcing issues and high numbers of chronically ill populations.