Record numbers of doctors, nurses, and health professionals moving to Australia

Record numbers of doctors, nurses, midwives and other health professionals are moving to Australia and working in the health system, since the election of the Albanese Government.

4,699 doctors from overseas have registered to practise in Australia in the first 10 months of this financial year, 50% more than the 2,991 doctors who registered in the entire year before COVID (2018/19).

8,910 doctors from overseas have joined the health workforce between July 2022 and April 2024, with record numbers now working in every state and territory.

One in two doctors who first registered to practise last financial year were educated overseas, with 60% of doctors coming from four countries with large English-speaking populations: United Kingdom, Ireland, India and Philippines.

Internationally educated doctors who want to provide Medicare services must spend their first 10 years working in a regional, rural or remote community. This means most newly registered doctors that have joined since the election of the Albanese Government are likely to be practising outside of the major cities.

The record boom in overseas educated health workers also extends to nurses, midwives and other health professionals, with 42,086 highly educated health professionals registering to practise since July 2022.

The 22,797 practitioners that registered in the first ten months of this financial year is already more than two times larger than the year before COVID (2018/19), when just 10,547 practitioners joined the workforce from overseas.

In September 2023, the Albanese Government cut unnecessary red tape that made it harder to recruit doctors from overseas, in line with key recommendations of the Kruk Review, an independent review of regulatory settings for overseas trained health professionals.

The 2024-25 Budget allocated $90 million to further streamline the process for overseas educated doctors and health professionals to join the Australian workforce, in line with other recommendations from the Kruk Review.

Quotes attributable to Minister Butler:

“Record numbers of doctors, nurses and other health professionals are moving to Australia and working in the Australian health system.

“This boom in health workers is a vote of confidence in the Australian health system and proves that our reforms to strengthen Medicare are working, after a decade of Coalition cuts and neglect.

“Close to 43,000 health professionals have joined the workforce since the Albanese Government was elected, making it easier to get the care you need from a doctor, nurse or other health professional.

“In the May Budget, we invested another $90 million to ensure that when doctors and nurses come in from overseas, they go straight on to the hospital floor, aged care facility, or general practice to deliver health care.”

*Sum of state figures is smaller than the total figure, as some doctors do not provide their principal place of practice address when they first register.