A new Australian Rheumatology Association report, to be released this weekend, will reveal the nation is short almost 300 rheumatologists, with rural and paediatric care gaps continuing to widen.
Australia remains hundreds of rheumatologists short of meeting international workforce benchmarks, according to a new Australian Rheumatology Association report to be launched at the ARA Annual Scientific Meeting this weekend.
And the association has warned the shortage would increase pressure on patients seeking specialist care.
ARA president Dr Sam Whittle said the updated workforce report showed Australia was currently short 243 adult rheumatologists and 55 paediatric rheumatologists nationally, despite modest workforce growth in recent years.
“We knew from the previous data that we were way behind the number of rheumatologists, both adult and paediatric rheumatologists, that would meet international benchmarks,” Dr Whittle told Rheumatology Republic.
“We have increased our numbers since then … but we are still far behind where we need to be.”
The report updates data first published in 2023 (using 2021 workforce figures) and is intended to support the ARA’s ongoing planning and advocacy efforts.
According to the new figures, Australia currently has 506 adult rheumatologists but requires 749 to meet projected need, while the paediatric workforce sits at just 25 specialists nationally against an estimated requirement of 80.
Dr Whittle said some encouraging signs had emerged since the previous report, particularly with state government commitments in New South Wales and South Australia to strengthen paediatric rheumatology services.
“There’s been a tangible improvement in the number of paediatric rheumatologists in South Australia over the last couple of years,” he said.
“These are encouraging signs, but they’re not enough for us to be complacent.
“We very much need to increase our training positions.”
The report is also expected to highlight persistent inequities in access to care outside metropolitan centres, with patients in rural and remote Australia continuing to face major barriers accessing specialist services.
“People who live in rural and remote areas still find it incredibly difficult to access rheumatologists in the same way that their urban brothers and sisters do,” Dr Whittle said.
Queensland and Western Australia appeared to be lagging slightly behind other jurisdictions in workforce distribution, while training growth remained insufficient to close the gap, he said.
For the first time, the updated report also surveyed rheumatology trainees, finding only about half intended to take on a full clinical workload after training and many planned to divide their time across multiple specialties.
“Our workforce planning needs to take this into account,” Dr Whittle said.
“Our head count numbers to get up to the required clinical FTEs is actually probably even higher than we expect.”
The ARA is calling for an expansion of training positions, greater support for rural workforce distribution and broader use of multidisciplinary care models incorporating rheumatology nurses and allied health professionals working to full scope of practice.
Dr Whittle said more rheumatology training should occur in private practice settings, noting around 60% of rheumatologists ultimately worked in private practice while almost all training remained concentrated in public hospitals.
“We think that it would be ideal if we could work with governments … to find strategies to perform some training in private practice, which would increase our training capacity, but also train people where they’re actually going to be doing their work,” he said.
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While telehealth had become an increasingly important support tool since the covid pandemic, Dr Whittle said it could not replace in-person specialist assessment, particularly for new patients and children requiring physical examination.
“We all recognise that you can’t do a sufficient new patient assessment via telehealth,” he said.
“That requires us to perform the clinical examination, so that’s something that won’t ever be replaced by technology.
“The technology’s got to be better as a tool for us to do our full scope of clinical practice. But it’s not a replacement for it.”
The ARA’s ASM will be held from 16 to 19 May at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre. For more information see here.
