Psychiatry Locums Jobs in Australia: How do we respond to increasing demands?
Locum psychiatry jobs has far and away taken the spotlight for locum demand in 2023.
There is a considerable shortage of psychiatrists across Australia and these staff shortages have hit the locum market hard. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, there are an estimated 3,131 psychiatrists working in Australia. That represents a mere 3.5 per cent of all employed medical professionals and 10 per cent of all specialist medical practitioners in the whole country.
We are also seeing a significant trend not just by specialty but by location. There is a considerable disparity in accessibility of mental health services between regional and metropolitan areas across Australia. The shortage of qualified psychiatrists is felt even harder by residents in less populated areas facing mental health issues. According to National and Rural Health Alliance Inc., the rate of suicide among men aged 15-29 living in regional areas is almost double that of men in the major cities!
A little over 88 per cent of all psychiatrists are based in major metro hubs, according to data from the
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Amongst inner regional and remote areas there are only 5.6 full-time psychiatrists per every 100,000 people with extremely remote areas having 2.1 per every 100,000!
Despite these alarming figures, with strong national leadership and an intent to provide adequate resources combined with local service planning, mental illness can be well managed in rural and remote areas as well as in major metro cities.
To some extent, there are always waves of demand in any given medical field. While some specialties are experiencing an increase in trainees and qualifying specialists reducing the critical workforce shortages, other specialist areas including mental health may not be keeping up with the impact of increasing patient demand for their specialised services. However, the shortage in permanent and locum psychiatrists runs much deeper, which is why we predict it is something that will be a recurring issue well into 2023 and through the coming years.
We predict the locum psychiatrist shortage will be a recurring issue well into 2023.
One of the bigger problems in psychiatry as a field is that cognitive specialties are not compensated as well as procedure-oriented fields such as cardiology or surgical services. This in essence can work as a disincentive for people choosing their medical specialty to some extent.
Which leads to our second problem, there are not enough people choosing psychiatry as a field of study. The current average age of psychiatrists in Australia is 53. With the current workforce reaching retirement age, we need a fresh batch of trained professionals to be entering the field, however the people are just not there.
The lack of new professionals in the field combined with a lackluster compensation compared to other medical specialties puts psychiatry recruitment at a major disadvantage. With less qualified psychiatrists onsite, this has an impact on the capacity to train up the new doctors that do come into the field. The lack of extra hands creates larger and more stressful workloads for the existing workers, which causes burnout and an unappealing image to potential recruits.
This brings us to our next issue: The regional vs. metropolitan predicament. While there is a shortage of permanent and locum psychiatrists across the board, the demand is felt much more significantly in regional Australia, as illustrated by the suicide spikes in rural areas.
The reasons behind this gap are straightforward. Regional areas are being asked to compete with bustling metropolitan areas for the already slim supply of qualified psychiatrists. Major cities naturally have more resources, a more appealing social culture and the appeal of a wider network of medical professionals. It's much easier to sell the idea of doing a 6-month stint in Sydney than perhaps Broken Hill.
But it's more than just the social appeal. Since regional areas in Australia are often very remote in nature, the workload for locum psychiatrists that do take on a rural placement can be much heavier. Without the sufficient number of full-time colleagues to call on, locums can be expected to take on more work than planned.
How do we proactively respond to this demand?
While there are some worrying projections tucked into this report, it doesn't mean there isn't hope for a solution. However, because the shortage of available permanent and locum psychiatrists does seem to be more than a passing trend, the solution must be one that addresses some deeply rooted issues.
1. Universities must assist in promoting psychiatry as a profession
In order to secure the kind of talent we need to meet the continued demand, we must first look to universities for their support. We need to create effective collateral to get medical students excited about the prospect of a career as a psychiatrist. But competitive remuneration is just one piece in the puzzle, newly qualified doctors have an opportunity to work in a quickly growing field. Most of what we know about the brain has only been discovered in the past 10 years.
2. Greater incentives should be created to lure Psychiatrists to work in regional and rural areas
In order to attract and retain a greater number of Psychiatrists to rural and regional Australia, there needs to be a whole range of incentives to pull trained professionals into the area. It doesn't have to be just greater remuneration, doctors could be further incentivized through choices such as greater work flexibility arrangements; increased annual leave or in some cases payment of private education fees for their families relocating to the area. We understand there is no quick fix to the problem. Employers, government leaders and industry heads need to work together to make realistic and enticing schemes to answer demand in an immediate way.
3. Recruitment agencies must work to strengthen their psychiatry candidate base
As with anything, filling these positions will require a bit of savvy marketing – a responsibility that partially falls to recruiters. While some of the necessary steps are out of our control (incentives, training programs, education etc.) what we can do is remind candidates of the value and benefits of regional work opportunities and continue to build up our foundation of permanent and locum prospects as we go.
If we continue as we are currently, the demand for locum psychiatrists will only grow and the mental health of affected areas will suffer.
The most effective approaches in our experience have been long-term tactics. Currently, our locum medical recruiter Jonathan Richards sets out to find practising psychiatrists heading into retirement that would be interested in doing occasional locum work.
On top of this, he works to find existing contacts that have experience in a given hospital or region and presents them with the opportunity to help in facilities that are currently struggling. Employing these kinds of measures allows us to find candidates that may not have previously considered locum work, but are well-suited to jump right in and hit the ground running.
The final takeaways
If we continue as we are currently, the demand for both locum and permanent psychiatrists will only grow and the mental health of rural and regional areas will continue to be suffer. We need professionals to fill these gaps. With a combination of the right incentives, the right recruitment tactics and the right training programs, we can fill vacancies in both permanent and locum psychiatry jobs in the coming years.
Here at CC Medical we're passionate about helping psychiatrists find the placements they are looking for so that they can continue to help the people who need it most.
Becoming a psychiatrist is an extremely rewarding career, from the chance for upward mobility to the meaningful nature of the work, there is an opportunity to partake in a profession that ticks all the most important marks.
Here at Careers Connections we're passionate about helping psychiatrists find the placements they are looking for so that they can continue to help the people who need it most. Interested in finding a locum or permanent psychiatry placement in Australia? Reach out to one of our team members today!
