Australia’s public hospitals employed about 271,000 full-time equivalent staff in 2011–12, and private hospitals employed more than 58,000 in 2010–11 (ABS 2012).
Hospital employees include medical officers (such as surgeons, anaesthetists and other specialists), nurses, diagnostic and allied health professionals (such as physiotherapists and occupational therapists), administrative and clerical staff, and domestic and other personal care staff.
These statistics do not include visiting medical officers in public hospitals (who are paid on contract, rather than as staff ) and most medical officers who provide services in private hospitals (where the patients and Medicare mainly cover payment, rather than the hospitals).
Public hospitals
The largest staffing category in public hospitals is nurses, who comprised 46% of the full-time equivalent staff numbers in 2011–12. Salaried medical officers comprised 13% of staff and diagnostic and allied health professionals together comprised 14%.
The number of salaried medical officers increased by an annual average of 6.2% between 2007–08 and 2011–12, to 34,300. The number of nurses increased by an annual average of 3.6%, to 123,000 in 2011–12 (Figure 5).
Private hospitals
The staffing mix in private hospitals is somewhat different from that in public hospitals, because most medical services are not provided by hospital employees and the range of services provided is different. The largest staffing category in private hospitals is nurses, who comprised 57% of full-time equivalent staff numbers in 2010–11. Medical officers and diagnostic and allied health professionals together comprised 7% of full-time equivalent staff (ABS 2012).